
















Meenas) 
Ue 






i Uf 
iets ON oo 
i ues He if os te Wiley aN os ON 
en ae ne ee 
Nie Ve ee NO sia oe 


yyy 
Ar - ry rn vad yy, Pos 
AY Sh Y i at eh ian 
ER CBA ole 


Baie 
ie 43 ue Be y 


* 
fs Cae eh ibis We 



































Af 
op) 
sede j 





















cae EDAye 
ae aus hy { 
i ay ee: bE . 
opts aS ake yi 4 
ey vie i a 4 


Hi | 
ae as SO ESGy4 ve 


She A 
a 
















We 
7 
4, 
i 
K 














= 
* 


oe 
SS 
ae > 
sce rn hr os 
7 ms, ~, 


7. 


oN 





Os 
ee 
oy 


S 

















Ws Re 
ie pes 
ie 










set 
20) 

Bee eT 

MAI a at a 

ry K "a Cai A ie 
t 

ii eye J fs) of 
Sy ye: 






,) 
© 


Hs 


» 





tn 
<< 





ae 
~~ 
he! 









eres, es 


Cae a he 


. 


are 







: : Aa ace . Sh ae et >: = 
+ > . -- a4, ~ o—~ > = : = i \- “ ~ ASS. ‘7 ~, A > Seu Ea = ~~ 
x ey “ae aco a r SR a oe eel 
A Pe eT Eee ee SOS aw 
_ a — = oa eX 2 Ee ANS c s os ~ 
Peat APE ken ee A SSO 
x c ‘ AS ~~ - ee 
~ a S * — 
nor oe Te a 
: <> 
SE AS SS 
~ 5 


* 
“~ 


—— 


me 








a 


. 











Sh 






eee 
Ss 








a 





PERELLA 


BY THE SAME AUTHOR 


TDOLS 

PERELLA 

JAFFERY 

VIVIETTE 

SEPTIMUS 

DERELICTS 

THE USURPER 

STELLA MARIS 

WHERE LOVEIS 

THE ROUGH ROAD 

THE MOUNTEBANK 

THE RED PLANET 

THE WHITE DOVE 

FAR-AWAY STORIES 

THE GREAT PANDOLFO 

SIMON THE JESTER 

THE COMING OF AMOS 

THE TALE OF TRIONA 

A STUDY IN SHADOWS 

A CHRISTMAS MYSTERY 

THE WONDERFUL YEAR 

THE HOUSE OF BALTAZAR 
THE FORTUNATE YOU 
THE BELOVED VAGABOND 
AT THE GATE OF SAMARIA 
THE GLORY OF CLEMENTIN2A 
THE MORALS OF MARCUS ORDEYNE 
THE DEMAGOGUE AND LADY PHAYRE 
THE JOYOUS ADVENTURES OF ARISTIDE PUJOL 





PERELLA 


BY 
WILLIAM J. LOCKE 


AUTHOR OF ‘“THE BELOVED VAGABOND,”” 
**THE GREAT PANDOLFO,”” ETC, 


NEW YORK 
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 
1926 














PART I 
PERELLA 
CHAPTER I 


Prretta Annaway found herself in Florence. She 
was one of those inconsiderable beings who find them- 
selves in places almost without an act of conscious voli- 
tion ; who drift, like an autumn leaf, from spot to spot, 
at the wind’s caprice. Not that there was anything 
autumnal about Perella. She was young—three-and- 
twenty—accepting with youth’s cheerful fatalism the 
will of any wind. 

Perella was pretty in a dark, Italian way. Her 
mainiicause for railing against Fortune was that there 
was so little of her. To herself she always seemed so 
small as to pass unperceived in a vast world. In a 
crowd she could see nothing but the lower part of the 
shoulder-blades of those in front of her. Wherefore 
she hated crowds. Her physical dislike had a moral 
correlation. She had grown up with a sense of her en- 
tire insignificance in the cosmic scheme. 

Of her faded Italian mother she retained only child- 
ish memories. 'The photograph which she always car- 
ried about with her revealed a spiritual, frightened 
thing in an old-fashioned dress, who seemed to wonder 
why she was alive in a flabbergasting world. Some- 
times, in moments of depression, she would kiss the pho- 
tograph in sentimental sympathy. Never could she 
reconcile her parents one with the other. How had 
they come together? Her inexperience of life was a 
barred door to the solution of the question. For her fa- 
ther, John Annaway, still alive—robustiously alive— 
was as remote from this terrified slip of a mother as an 


ogre froma fairy. Ofcourse she adored him. He had 
1 


2 PERELLA 


brought her up in a fashion of his own, and he stood in 
her serious eyes as a sort of rapscallion Jove. It never 
occurred to her that the daughter of the starving poet 
in Rome had, as inamorata and wife, been carried away 
by those very vividly male qualities that had bound 
herself as a daughter to the hairy and joyous pagan 
that was her father. 

Perella sat in her little back room of the Pension 
Toselli on the Lungarno Torrigiani, and looked out on 
uninspiring chimney-pots, and grey desolate sky from 
which fell stern, pitiless rain. There is no gentle rain 
in Florence. She had just come im after her day’s 
work at the Uffizi, and was very wet and cold and 
miserable. The famously advertised central-heating 
of the Pension Toselli did not extend to the tiny back 
bedreoms. A radiator of three tepid pipes would prob- 
ably pretend to warm the stuffy salon, where the old 
trouts (such was Perella’s maiden jargon) of Anglo- 
Saxonia sought to exhilarate their fishy blood with 
weak tea and strong scandal; but that wouldn’t dry 
her soaked shoes and wet stockings which lay forlornly 
on the floor awaiting the slatternly nondescript maid 
who was far too busy to take notice of back bedroom 
bells. . . . A dismal trickle from the poor little wet 
umbrella crept sinuously across the uncarpeted floor. 
Half-unclothed, barefoot, Perella looked anxiously at 
her hat. There was only a little soaked inch at the 
back. Perhaps it wouldn’t show, after all. She 
sighed. Hats were so dreadfully expensive, and, 
lured by the morning’s sunshine, she had put on her 
best. Why she had selected her newest Sunday-go-to- 
meeting hat just to go to her daily routine of copymg 
the Franciabigio, she didn’t know. It was silly of her. 
But the early spring had sung a lilting song, and she 
had obeyed a blind instinct. 


PERELLA 3 


The stain would pass. She refused to contemplate 
heartbreak. Luckily the ribbon was untouched. She 
put the vanity tenderly on the deal chest of drawers. 
Her legs and feet were frozen. She debated for a mo- 
ment. Should she reattire herself in dry clothes and 
descend to tea among the old trouts who worried her 
because she was a painter, questioned her curiously be- 
cause she was the daughter of a well-known journalist, 
and criticized her clammily because she was young and 
possibly good-looking, or should she sacrifice the tea 
which she wanted, and frankly go to bed and stay there 
in warmth until the hour came for the farinaceous and 
oleaginous evening meal? She decided on bed. After 
all, for the moment, she was mistress of her destiny. 
So, sticking her cold little feet into the arms of a wool- 
len sweater, and dragging the body of it as far as it 
would go up her legs, she snuggled into bed, and gave 
herself up to philosophic reflection. 

In ten minutes she was as warm and as physically 
content as a stray kitten curled up before a casual 
fireside. Beyond this easy comfort she did not look. 
She had lived all her young life in cold back bedrooms, 
and been nourished on haphazard meals. When her 
father was busy on his copy, the delivery of which he 
ever put off to the last moment, he disregarded food. 
When he was idle, he preferred drink. She had lived 
in a series of poky flats in West Kensington, Putney, 
Battersea—one scarcely distinguishable from the other. 
Her father naturally had the best bedroom; one of the 
two reception rooms served as his study, the other as 
dining- and drawing-room; the spare bedroom at the 
back—always at the back, either overshadowed by the 
buildings on the other side of the dull courtyard or 
commanding a view of forests of chimney-pots—had 
been assigned to Perella. . . . She had been accus- 


4  PERELLA 


tomed from childhood to look after herself; mainly 
through instinct of self-preservation. If she felt hun- 
gry she would go into the tiny kitchen and beg the un- 
kempt servant to cook something for her, wherefore her 
main fare had consisted of kippers and bacon and tea. 
To look after her great, hairy, untidy father had been 
an impossibility. So long as his den was left un- 
dusted, his bed made for the night, and his morning re- 
pose held sacred, he scorned domestic ministrations. 
He spent most of his life at his clubs; one, when he was 
more or less respectably dressed and attuned to social 
amenities, being the Savage; the other (his favourite) 
a dissolute den cynically styled the “Fuddlers.” He 
was a man who cut himself adrift from responsibility. 
While Perella was a small girl, he gave her over to the 
care of a poor-spirited and impecunious cousin who 
came daily to the flat of the moment and gave the child 
elementary instruction. Later, when the conscientious 
Mentor recommended boarding-school, he bade her 
make inquiries. She reported. ‘The fees demanded 
filled him with a sense of outrage. Good God! It 
would mean at least a couple more columns a week! 
He couldn’t do it. Education? So long as a child 
knew how to read a book, it could educate itself, and 
wasn’t his study crammed from ceiling to floor with 
books? What more was necessary? Of course she 
could have the run of his library while he wasn’t there, 
so long as she didn’t make a mess of the place... . 
And so was Perella educated. .. . 

Now and then his cronies came in to smoke pipes and 
drink whisky, eat bread and cheese and cold ham, and 
talk. ‘They were writing men, out-at-elbow painters, 
or black and white artists; now and then stray musi- 
cians who would thump out strange harmonies on the 
battered old cottage piano. Perella would sit for an 


PERELLA 5 


hour or two and listen to the talk or the music, and 
regard them as demi-gods grouped around the feet of 
her Olympian sire, which was more or less true. With 
one or two satyr-like exceptions they were all younger 
men, he having fallen out of the race of his own gener- 
ation. Anyhow, among them Perella felt herself the 
most infinitesimal of mortal atoms. She made mental 
notes of the books they talked about, and, having 
hunted them up in her father’s study, read as much of 
them as she could understand. 

Then, one evening, a young man from Chelsea took 
up a girlish sketch or two which she had left lying about 
the careless room. 

“Hullo, Annaway! Who did these? Perella?” 

He took them over to the bearded Jove. Perella 
wished herself less than an atom, an invisible electron. 

‘Yes, I suppose so,” said her father casually. 

“They’re jolly good,” said the young man from 
Chelsea. 

He bored the Olympian dreadfully, but he set every 
nerve throbbing in Perella’s small body. 

“Of course she can go to your rotten Art school if 
she likes,” said her father at last. ‘“‘There’s only the 
bridge to cross.” This was the Battersea flat. “What 
about it, old thing?” 

“Oh!” breathed Perella. 

And that was the end, or rather, the beginning of it. 
She became an Art student in Chelsea, and, for the first 
time in her life mingled with youth of her own age... . 
Then, when she was twenty-one, all kinds of things hap- 
pened. First, her aunt Euphemia, a maiden lady 
whom she had seen but transiently and at long intervals, 
and who had renounced for many years John Annaway 
and all his works, died, and left her sixty pounds a 

year. Secondly, she sold some drawings. Thirdly, 


6 PERELLA 


she found herself in Paris, she scarce knew how, with 
another girl. Fourthly, when she returned to the par- 
ental flat, she found installed there a lady who made 
no pretence of being her adopted sister. 

“My dear,” said the Jovian reprobate, “I’m grow- 
ing old and infirm’”—he was on the sunny side of fifty 
—‘“and I need someone to look after me during my 
declining years. You have lived among the riff-raft 
across the river, and, to my knowledge, you have ac- 
cepted the hospitality of ménages that it pleases the 
world to call irregular. So it would be hypocritical 
of you to be shocked. . . . Of course, my dear, my 
home, small as it is, is always yours; but I’m sure you 
would like to be independent. And why shouldn’t you? 
You have your own little fortune. You’re selling pic- 
tures like hot cakes. You have youth, ambition, hope. 
My God, how I envy you!” 

He drank half a tumbler of whisky and soda, and, in 
accents of deep emotion, repeated: 

‘““How I envy you!” 

Upon which he gave her his blessing and a bewilder- 
ing cheque for fifty pounds, and smiled her out into the 
wide world. 

Over these things did Perella ponder as she lay thaw- 
ing in bed in Florence. That morning she had received 
one of her father’s rare letters which brought back the 
past, so near in actual time, and yet so pathetically re- 
mote. He had said: 


“Always thinking, my dear child, of your welfare, I have 
written to my old friend, Professor Gayton—the Silvester 
Gayton, you know—to ask him to do something for you. He 
once was very kind to me—so why shouldn’t he be kind to 
your” 


PERELLA 7 


During her two or three years’ solitary drifting, she 
had learned something about the world, and the queer 
ways of the men and women that peopled it. Her Jo- 
vian sire no longer dwelt on Olympus. She knew him 
for what he was—a brilliant man, sodden with drink and 
self-indulgence, only whipped out of sloth by the ne- 
cessity of earning the minimum livelihood adequate to 
his tastes. . . . The lady was still there, guiding the 
feeble footsteps of forty-nine. . . . Perella, although 
she knew that the Winstanleys and the Borrowdailes— 
good friends of hers—were not married, winced at the 
thought of the lady. As a matter of fact, as far as 
a diminutive waif can hate, she hated the lady. She 
knew not why; for, apparently, from all reports, she 
was a decent soul who had rescued him from the fumes 
of the Fuddlers’ Club. But why didn’t he marry her? 
Some Puritan atavism, exemplified by the late Aunt 
Euphemia, rebelled against the situation. 

Stull, she couldn’t help adoring him, his smiling ge- 
niality, his imperturbable good-nature, his splendour 
of intellect when he was at his best, his giant’s baby- 
helplessness, ever fascinating to woman; all his quali- 
ties, as she thought of them, warmed her heart. And 
then this trouble to which he had put himself—to write 
to Professor Gayton. . . . Yes, she adored him in spite 
of everything. Im spite, too, of the introduction to 
Professor Gayton. She had seen pictures of Profes- 
sors in the comic papers, and once a prototype had 
visited the flat in Battersea. The latter (like the pic- 
tures) was stuffy and snuffy, and wore a white beard 
reaching down to his middle. She was very young, 
ten years old, at the time, and he had kissed her; but 
the smell of snuff and stale white beard had lingered 


8 PERELLA 


in her memory. If he had worn a full growth, strong 
and ruddy, like her father, it wouldn’t have mattered. 
But the Professor had a long, soiled, clean-shaven upper 
lip, which seemed to make a world of difference. She 
sighed, having little use for white-bearded professors. 
Then, the reflection that nowadays she was too mature 
for casual oscularity brought consolation, and she gur- 
gled a little comfortable laugh. The world was not 
a bad place, after all. Rosenstein, the dealer in the 
Rue Bonaparte, had promised her two thousand francs 
for a copy of the Madonna del Pozzo on which she 
was now engaged, if it came up to the sample of her 
work at the Louvre. Perhaps, after all, that was why 
she found herself in Florence. Payment in thousands 
conveyed splendid suggestion. . . . She felt quite warm 
now. Sweater arms were the only wear for cold toes. 
. . - Had she got the little St. John’s thighs all right? 
Of course in Franciabigio’s original picture they were 
hopelessly out of drawing. Wouldn’t the accurate re- 
production rather glare in the copy? On the other 
hand, to put the Immortal Master right—the easiest 
thing in the world to do—would not only be an act of 
unpardonable presumption, but might put the whole of 
the picture wrong. ‘The Infant, though, was lovely. 
She thought she had got Him—especially that little 
adorable bit where the Madonna’s hands pressed into 
the tender baby flesh . . . and the sweet little puckers 
in the legs. . . . Two thousand lire! She could af- 
ford a couple of pairs of silk stockings, and another best 
hat if this one was ruined, and she could buy “A Wan- 
derer in Florence.” 

The clatter of a cracked gong dimly heard from far 
below aroused her from vagrant musing. Seven o’clock — 
already? She rose, made her ablutions in the fitted 
wash-basin—running-water, hot and cold, in every 


PERELLA 9 


room, as per advertisement—shrinking a little from the 
ice-cold stream that poured out of the hot tap, put her- 
self into some sort of flimsy semblance of an evening 
frock—she had but two, one faded mauve, the other 
yellowed cream; she chose the mauve—and hurried 
down three flights of stairs to the salon, where the in- 
mates assembled before dinner. 

It was a stark, moth-eaten room, and the guests had 
the appearance of being somewhat the worse for wear, 
and of braving it out with forlorn perkiness. The two 
Miss Brabazons had lived there for fifteen years. 
They were the authorities on Florentine History, To- 
pography and Art. It was considered a breach of eti- 
quette to contradict them. 'The Rev. Edward Grewson 
and his wife were five-year-old pillars of the establish- 
ment. He was squat and asthmatic, and perspired 
freely in cold weather ; he also did an occasional clerical 
turn at Holy Trinity or St. Mark’s, being an amiable 
and much respected man. Mr. Enderby, a sprightly 
young man from Cook’s, also regarded himself as a 
pillar. The others were birds more or less of passage. 
Two or three American girls in feverish chase after 
culture, and a vague Rumanian widow; also a young 
English garden-city honeymoon couple, both sandy- 
haired, with whom Perella had formed a timid acquaint- 
ance. The last seemed to spend their days tramping 
over Tuscany, bare-headed, with weird luggage 
strapped to their backs. The young man wore his col- 
lar outside his jacket, the lady conformed so far to con- 
vention as to attire herself for the evening in a shape- 
less green garment with holes cut for head and arms. 
They had inscribed their names on the register as Mr. 
and Mrs. Basil Merrywether. 

They greeted Perella as she shyly entered. They 
had walked to Fiesole and back. 


10 PERELLA 


‘“‘A glorious excursion,” said he. 

“And the lovely cathedral. And the Roman Thea- 
tre. Too fascinating for words,” said she. “You 
know it, of course?” 

Perella sighed. There was so much in Florence for 
her yet to see, and the copying of the picture took up so 
much of her time. She looked at the privileged couple 
in admiration. 

“You don’t mean to say you went all the way up 
there in this pouring rain?” 

“We did,” said Basil Merrywether triumphantly. 
“It was splendid—so fresh, so exhilarating.” 

Said Mr. Grewson, who was standing by: 

“You believe then in always taking the rain of the 
country?” 

Perella caught a waggish eye, and laughed. Mrs. 
Merrywether looked at him blankly. 

““My husband’s holiday is limited, and we must see 
as much as we can, rain or fine.” 

Mr. Grewson mopped his forehead. ‘Quite so, quite 
so, my dear lady. We must make the best of things. 
Otherwise what would be the function of Divine Provi- 
dence?” 

‘“That’s very true,” she acquiesced. 

‘“‘Besides, I like the rain,” her husband declared. “It 
sets the atmosphere of the landscape just as often as the 
sunshine. To see everything in the sunshine is to go 
away with—well, not false, but unrectified impressions. 
Impressions in life are the things that matter.” 

“My husband,” said Mrs. Merrywether, by way of 
supplement, “has written a play from that point of 
view. It’s going to be produced when he gets back at 
our new theatre at Goldstead Park.” 

Perella eyed her with awe. 

“T didn’t know Mr. Merrywether was a dramatist.” 


99 


PERELLA 11 


“T’m not,” he replied heartily. “I wish to goodness I 
were! Ive got to toil and moil at sordid things all day 
long. But my nights belong to myself, and then I try 
to express myself, as my wife says, impressionistically.” 

“T’ve got to encourage him, you see,” said Mrs. Mer- 
rywether. “An artist’s wife is no wife unless she’s pre- 
pared to make sacrifices.” 

Mr. Grewson mopped his forehead again, and, not 
daring, this time, to let Perella catch his waggish eye, 
turned away to the elder Miss Brabazon. 

Madame Toselli, dark, plump, smiling, but with deep 
and anxious perpendicular lines between her brows, 
entered the room. Why an Englishwoman who had 
married an Italian (now defunct) should be addressed 
as “Madame,” no one knew. Mr. Grewson, always 
humoristic, would whisper that it was because she once 
had an aunt who had divorced a Portuguese Admiral. 
It is true that she always spoke of “my uncle, the Ad- 
miral,” with an air that compelled respect. Her lips 
smiled greetings, but her eyes were busy counting 
heads. The perpendicular lines deepened. She 
turned suddenly and went out of the room, returning 
presently on the stroke of the cracked gong. Dinner 
was served. The company drifted into the bleak 
dining-room, where the old-fashioned custom of the long 
common table was retained. Punctuality was the es- 
sence of economic service. A guest who arrived late 
must forfeit the courses he had missed. If he strolled 
in when the meal was over, he had no meal. Median 
and Persian were the laws of the Pension Toselli. 

Madame Toselli took her place at the end of the long 
table flanked by its double row of yellow backed cane 
chairs, and meagrely adorned by a few vases of artifi- 
cial flowers set on the central line. The old custom of 
seniority prevailed. The Misses Brabazon sat one on 


12 . PERELLA 


each side of the hostess. Then came the Grewsons. 
And so in order. Perella, the last comer, stole into her 
chair at the very end. Her neighbour was a deaf old — 
lady who, according to Madame Tselli’s reiterated as- 
surances, belonged to a Swiss noble family, but ate 
spaghetti in the fresh and joyous way in which a certain 
nation recently tried to wage war. As Perella couldn’t 
talk Swiss, and couldn’t have been heard even if she 
did, she let her neighbour eat her food in (figurative) 
silence, and retired into the funny world of her own 
thoughts and sensations. Her opposite neighbours 
across the narrow table were an elderly Italian couple, 
who disregarded the existence of the other alien guests. 
Thus, it will be seen that, up to the present, Perella’s 
meals had been rather lacking in convivial charm. 

But on this evening, when she sat down beside the 
deaf old lady, she noticed a vacant place below her, 
whose set-out for a new-comer was made startlingly con- 
spicuous by a clean, fan-wise folded napkin stuck in a 
tumbler. Her own napkin wore the reproachful dingi- 
ness of days. She felt a mild thrill of excitement. She 
was no longer the last new girl at this elderly sort of 
boarding-school. Some newer girl was coming. She 
hoped she would be English and nice and companion- 
able. She dreamed of suave possibilities, and her thin 
soup was swept away before she had half finished it; 
whereupon she resolved to concentrate her mind on the 
ravigiolt which was beginning to be handed round at 
the far-off head of the table. 

Then the door opened. In came a careless young 
man in a dinner-jacket—solus mortaliwm, alone thus 
vested of men who were dining there—who, after stand- 
ing for a disconcerted moment, strolled up to Madame 
Toselli. Madame Toselli looked up at him rebukingly, 
and pointed down the room. He smiled and nodded, 


PERELLA 13 


advanced, and, taking his place beside Perella, unfolded 
his fan-folded napkin with the air of one accustomed to 
clean and freshly folded napkins at every meal of his 
life. Before sitting down, however, he met the stony 
Italian stare of his opposite neighbours, and made them 
an easy bow, to which they responded punctiliously. 
To Perella, too, he made the faintest little suggestion 
of a salutation. Then, while waiting for the slowly 
advancing dish, he scanned the table in a humorous 
glance. 

He was a clean-run, brown-haired, blue-eyed youth, 
who gave Perella a queer magnetic sensation of pulsat- 
ing life. The ravigioli was served; she wondered 
whether he would speak to her. She noticed that he 
ate his ravigioli with a very healthy appetite. Sud- 
denly he said to her: 

“To you happen to be English?” 

She smiled shyly. “Yes, of course.” 

“Why of course? By the look of you, you might be 
a gipsy or anything.” 

She coloured. He went on: 

“What are you doing here?” 

“T’m living here,” said Perella. 

“Since when?” 

“T came here a week ago.” 

“None of these people are your friends?” 

“Oh, no,” said Perella truthfully. 

“Then look at them,” said the young man with an 
engaging smile. ‘Cast your eye up and down them. 
Did you ever see such a job lot of fish in your life?” 


CHAPTER II 


Durine the course of her Art studies in Chelsea and 
that of her driftings in London and Paris, Perella had 
come across many young men—clean, dirty, vehement 
and modest. With none of them, however, had she 
been on terms of comradeship, lingering, as she was, 
under John Annaway’s Olympian spell. She trans- 
lated the masculine into terms of her father, and 
shrank, in a shy woodland way, from a dominant sex. 
For which reason, self-centred young men, accustomed 
to facile friendship with unreserved young women, 
passed her by as a young female of no account. Some- 
times, in half-hours of poetic meditation, she envied the 
bolder of her sisters who, with the splendid air of god- 
desses conferring favours, went alone with young men 
to tea-shops, cinemas and theatres. She pictured to 
herself the thrilling experience. But, on awaking to 
prosaic life, she knew that these were crazy dreams, and 
that none of her men acquaintances would be bored 
with her for more than five minutes at a time. So she 
shrugged her little shoulders and went her little lonely 
way. 

The easy young man with the irreverent outlook, 
sitting next to her at table, was a revelation. He 
talked to her not out of perfunctory politeness, but 
because he appeared to enjoy her company. He had 
the manners of a prince travelling incognito, and gave 
her the feeling that he found her of birth so kindred as 
to include her in his sphere of remoteness from the other 
guests of the Pension. 

“Tt’s all very well to say you’re living here,” he re- 


marked, “but what are you doing here save living?” 
14 


PERELLA 15 


“Trying to earn it,” replied Perella audaciously. 

He laughed. “I wish you’d tell me how to do it. 
That’s what I’ve come for. What do you do?” 

“I’m a copyist.” 

“Painter? Yes? How great! Splendid! I’ve come 
to paint or draw, or do something, I don’t quite know 
what. You'll put me right. Ill stay here for ever 
and sit at your feet. Now that I come to look at you, 
you have the painter’s face—the wide-set eyes, you 
know. I’m sort of half-trained as an architect. If it 
was all art, designing cathedrals and mausoleums and 
casinos, I’d love it. But nowadays it’s a matter of 
stresses and strains and ferro-concrete and drainage 
systems and sticking in hot-water pipes so that a cook 
can wash up greasy dishes without any trouble. You 
don’t call that art, do you?” 

“It’s all very necessary,” said Perella. 

“Then let’s leave it in the hands of the Necessarians.” 

*“Why not be one?” 

“Can't,” said the young man. “I went into Arm- 
strong’s office, you know—Halliday Armstrong, R.A. 
Thought I was going to help him in International Com- 
petitions, Designs for Palaces in Siam and Sweden, all 
pediments and pinnacles—that’s just a pretty figure 
of speech, because they don’t gee together.” Perella 
smiled. “But you see what I mean. I wanted to be 
an artist, and the last job the beastly fellow put me on 
to was the working drawings of the sub-basement of a 
Monster Hotel. Can you imagine it? Every con- 
ceivable horrible pipe, tube, furnace, boiler, ventilating 
shaft, hygienic cockroach pen. ...I went to the 
Great One in modest expostulation. I was born to 
higher things. He had the nerve to say—he’s one of 
those nasty, precise people with a squeaky voice: 
‘Young man, you were born to do that which is good 


16 PERELLA 


for your soul. Clear out and go back to your work.’ ” 

“And you cleared?” asked Perella, vastly enter- 
tained. 

“Eventually. I couldn’t stick it. I put it to you, 
as a practical, sensible girl, quivering, at the same time, 
like me, with the sense of beauty, the beauty of line and 
colour, I put it to you—could you have stuck it?” 

Never had man made to her an appeal so personal as 
this frank and mirthful youth. She coloured adorably, 
and laughter shone in her eyes. 

“So long as I didn’t have to draw the cockroaches.” 

He laughed again at this mild jest, helped himself 
to the veal which, after tasting, he declared to be the 
sweated calf, the right portion for prodigals. She 
asked him when he had arrived. ‘That very evening, 
he said. He had put in a day or two at Milan to see 
the Cathedral and the Brera. Being broke to the wide, 
he explained in his lucid English, he had asked a Flor- 
entine resident to recommend him a hole where he could 
eat and sleep at minimum expense. The friend had 
paved his way to the Pension Toselli. 

“When I came to the dining-room, my first impulse 
was to bolt like a rabbit who finds himself in a den of 
foxes, but you make all the difference. Now that we’re 
on intimate terms, do tell me your name. Mine’s Blake 
—Anthony Blake.” ‘ 

“Miss Annaway,” she replied primly. 

“Annaway?” He flicked association-seeking fingers. 
“Anything to do with the John Annaway who writes 
that column in the Sunday-what-d’ye-call it?” 

*““He’s my father.” 

He radiated delight. 

“How splendid to know all about you at once! 
What’s your Christian name? I’ve told you mine.” 

“It’s rather odd. Perella.” | 


PERELLA 17 


“Odd? It’s unique. You must be the only Perella 
in the world.” 

With such stimulating discourse did he hold her at- 
tention to the end of the meal. She learned odds and 
ends of his ingenuous history. Harrow had prepared 
him for Cambridge, and Cambridge had prepared him 
for the perfect enjoyment of hedonistic existence. His 
father, a partner in the old-established firm of Blake, 
Bislett and Smith, stockbrokers, had reserved a seat for 
him in the decorous office. He described it to Perella, 
in an exaggerated way, as a place of horror, nerve- 
racking with the rattle of typewriters, the clicking of 
tapes, the clang of telephones, the epicene roarings of 
distant bulls and bears; the whole filthy place a tangle 
of unintelligible arithmetic. With perfect filial cour- 
tesy, of course, he had turned it down. The best day’s 
work, he said, that he had ever done in his life. 

At this point of his story, dinner being over, Madame 
Toselli rose, and the company filed out of the dining- 
room, back to the moth-eaten salon. 

On the threshold he apostrophized the Deity and 
seized Perella’s wrist. 

“T can’t stand it. I should go mad. What do they 
do? ‘Sit and hear each other groan’ like the gentle- 
men in Keats? What do you do?” 

“T get into a corner and read up Florence for an 
hour, and then I go to bed,” said Perella. “Or else I 
listen to Mr. Grewson talk.” 

“But suppose you want to talk yourself?” 

Perella blinked at the startling suggestion. 

“T don’t,” she murmured. 

“But I do,” he declared. “I love talking.” 

“Well, go in and try,” she said, her heart ever so 
little a-flutter. ‘“They’ll love to listen to you.” 

“T like to choose my audience,” he said. “I want to 


18 PERELLA 


go on talking to you. Where the Hades can I do it?” 

“Here,” said Perella helplessly. 

He shivered. “In this awful draught? Isn’t there 
some dreadful, deserted Picture Palace in the town 
where one can gossip in comparative warmth?” 

From fluttering, her heart progressed to beating 
hard. The crazy dream was coming true. A young 
man—and, to boot, a young man of elegant accomplish- 
ment and fascination—was for taking her out, all by 
herself, to the Cinema. Hitherto, on male-escorted 
picture jaunts, she had been dragged as a third party, 
damping undesirable ardour. He misunderstood her 
blushing effort to collect her confused wits. 

‘“Won’t you come with me? Really I’m quite harm- 
less. Or are you afraid that, when you get back into 
the Aquarium, the dreadful fishes will tear you to bits?” 

“Oh, they don’t matter !”’ said Perella. 

“What does then?” 

“Nothing,” said Perella. 

“Come along, then. We’ll hat and coat ourselves 
and meet at the bottom of the stairs.” 

They met. She had put on her one smart coat over 
her flimsy evening frock—it was very thin—and her 
one little bit of fur round her neck, and the precious hat 
on which the rain-stain (oh, beneficent Providence!) 
no longer showed. He was smoking a cigarette in 
the dim hall. She drew a quick breath. 

“Oh, I haven’t kept you waiting?” 

He took out his watch and consulted it by the dim 
light. 

‘Thirty-five seconds,” he said. 

The rain had ceased, and given place to a night of 
scudding cloud and watery half-moon and a vapoury 
air through which Florence across the river rose lu- 
minously fantastic. They walked up the quiet Lun- 


PERELLA 19 


garno Torrigiani and the Via de Bardi, Anthony Blake 
talking into enchanted ears. But once on the Ponte 
Vecchio, conversation, save in confidential staccato, be- 
came impossible. As one inured to the conduct of dam- 
sels, he tucked his hand under her arm, and guided her 
through the welter of the crowd that, from time im- 
memorial, has ever found its vagrant yet sheltered 
pleasure in the public streets. Horse and motor traf- 
fic divided it perpetually, as though ploughing a way 
through dry sand; and, as perpetually, the sand of 
humans closed in again, unconscious of disturbance. 

“Isn’t it fascinating?” he said, with a little squeeze of 
her arm. ‘‘Must have been just like this when Savona- 
rola was a boy. I’ve often heard of it—never seen it. 
I wonder where we’re going to?” 

“Don’t you know your way?” 

“Lord, no! Didn’t I tell you I struck the ike 
only two hours ago? I’m a babe in your hands, cry- 
ing for a picture-palace with nobody in it.” 

“If we go straight on and follow that tram,” she 
said, with a new sense of authority, “we'll come to the 
Piazza di Vittorio Emanuele, where all the cinemas and 
things are. That’s modern; but if you’d like to go a 
little bit out of your way, down this street here, you 
may see something quite as good as a cinema.” 

“Nice and warm and gossipy?” 

She chuckled happily. ‘“‘You’ll see.” 

The short Vacchereccia brought them into the com- 
paratively quiet Piazza della Signoria. The moon, es- 
caping from tormenting cloud, spread sombre majesty 
over the dimly lit expanse of wonder. ‘The young man, 
Anthony Blake, dropped the girl’s arm, and _ stood 
agape. There, in the mysterious light, loomed the grim, 
gigantic, heavily machicolated and battlemented mass 
of the Palazzo Vecchio, surmounted by its grim machi- 


20 PERELLA 


colated and battlemented campanile. There in shadow 
gleamed, mysterious and compelling, the fountained 
Neptune of Michael Angelo. A turn, and full and 
serene in the moonlight stood the cloister of the Lanzi, 
delicate-coloured, round-arched, spandrel-decorated, 
with its frieze of proud yet gracious heraldry; and, be- 
low, the baffling mystery of its immortal dwellers in 
bronze and stone. 

“Of course you can’t see it now, but that’s the Per- 
seus of Benvenuto.” 

His hand sought hers, and, like fairy-tale children 
im an Enchanted Castle, they wandered round the 
square in awed silence. After a while he said: 

“Now we’re at it, let us see it all.” 

*“*All what?” 

“*Florence.” 

“It would take a year at least.” 

“We'll do it. You and I together,” he said. “But 
let us see all we can to-night. 3 

She felt herself growing more audacious every min- 
ute. 

“That wouldn’t be fair to Florence. It’s a bit trip- 
pery, isn’t it?” 

VEPs ie tripper! on 

He smote his chest in protestation. 

“That’s why. You’re not. You can afford to see it 
bit by bit. I rushed around when I first arrived, and 
I couldn’t sleep for two nights. Everything went 
round and round, and got hopelessly mixed up. But 
perhaps you’ve got a stronger head.” 

They came out into a patch of watery moonlight, and 
he became aware of her little pale face. 

“I’ve got a stronger body, and I’m a selfish brute. 
You’ve been standing up all day in some frowsty place 
before a horrid easel, and you’re dead tired.” 


PERELLA 21 


She protested valiantly that exercise was the one 
thing in the world she needed; that the grounds of her 
counsel had been purely exsthetic. Why not keep this 
one wonderful impression, instead of muddling it up 
with a hundred others? 

“Perella,” said he, “I adopt you as my artistic con- 
science. We will now take a cab to the ghastly warm 
Palace of our dreams.” 

But cab she refused. Was he a millionaire to take 
cabs, on a moment’s whim, to drive but a few yards? 
Said he: 

“'To-night I feel the Lord of the Earth!” 

She gave him a little upward, fleeting glance. The 
proclamation was an echo of her father in his uplifted 
moments. But these moments had been ever uplifted 
by spirituous liquors, whereas her companion had 
drunk nothing but the thinnest of red wine, and spar- 
ingly, because it was not over-alluring. She became 
half conscious of a quick blacking out, as on a film, 
breaking the sequence of high romance. Her practical 
little mind worked swiftly. Lords of the Earth dwelt 
in Grand Hotels, not Pensions Toselli. Besides, had 
he not confessed to being broke to the wide, and to 
seeking a modest hole? She must check this magnifi- 
cent but spendthrift boy on the road to ruin. 

“We walk, or I don’t come,” she declared. 

“So long as you come,” he said, “I’ll crawl on all 
fours.” 

She laughed, and the film of romance flashed out 
again. 'They set forth on their quest of comfort. On 
their way they came to the half-arch of the Or San 
Michele. He paused, looked on either side at the phan- 
tasmagoria of sculpture in the confused light. 

“You must blindfold me, or I’ll have no further use 
for you as a conscience.” 


22 PERELLA 


Again she laughed. “I’m so glad you feel like that 
about it. Beauty is something, isn’t it? Just 
Beauty?” 

“Tt’s everything,” he proclaimed. 

‘All these people at the Pension talk of Florence as 
if it were a collection of postage-stamps.” 

“My dear Conscience,” he said, joming her after a 
forced separation by half a dozen free young Floren- 
tines, “more than ever do I desire to make your better 
acquaintance.” 

Around the approaches to the great Piazza the crowd 
grew thicker. It was mainly composed of men; but of 
men, not hurrying feverishly m pursuit of tram-cars, 
girls, wives, homes, dog-dealers, and other pleasures, but 
standing, lounging, strolling a step or two and then 
returning; and talking, talking, smoking, spitting, tak- 
ing their curious jostled ease, and, as casually individu- 
alistic as their ancestors, indifferent to the convenience 
of would-be passing man, woman, or child. Only the 
hoot of a car, or the crack of a cabman’s whip, and the 
familiar curse on his tongue, caused the resentful move- 
ment of self-preservation. 

They emerged into the Piazza di Vittorio Emanuele, 
once the most picturesque, squalid, ancient, and fasci- 
nating network of fever- and assassin-haunted slums in 
Europe, but now a vast square blazing with electric 
light; and surrounded by those square blocks of com- 
mercial buildings put up by Italian engineer-architects 
which make one edile say to another: ‘‘We are citizens 
of no mean city.” And there are electrically lighted 
shop-fronts, and glittering open-air cafés, and illumi- 
nated, multi-coloured entrances to Picture Palaces. 
And in the middle of it, on a monstrous plinth on a 
prancing horse, sits King Victor Emanuel, obviously 
agreeing with the ediles. 


PERELLA 23 


“You’re quite right,” said Anthony Blake. “We've 
done the only thing possible. This is the acid, or what- 
ever it is, that fixes the photographic plate—the other 
Piazza, you know.” 

“Of course I know,” said Perella. 

They entered the cinema portal—no door was ever 
equipped with its gorgeousness. He took tickets. 
They passed through turnstiles, and mounted carpeted 
stairs, and a torch-equipped attendant took them 
through a curtained doorway into the high tier of a dim 
amphitheatre. ‘The benches were sparsely occupied. 
Perella whispered reproachfully : 

“These are the most expensive seats.” 

“Tf you think one can get warmth and privacy for 
nothing, you’re mistaken. How could we talk down 
there?” 

He pointed to the crowded floor-space; then took her 
hand, and groped to the highest and most desolate cor- 
ner. 

On the screen, the monochrome human shadows per- 
formed their pale and dismal antics. Square-jawed 
men sat at roller desks and talked telephonically to each 
other. Large-eyed pseudo-maidens, difficult to dis- 
tinguish one from the other, registered sorrow and joy. 
Automobiles dashed up to modest wooden clipper-built 
houses, whose interiors, vast and stately, would make 
Knowle or Longleat fade into the drab of Hydros. 
There were horses which slept and ate at galloping 
speed; there were old homes with cradled babies whose 
venerable grandmothers must have been well over sev- 
enty when their mothers were born; there was every 
flatulent negation of Truth as interpreted through the 
medium of Art, that commercial imbecility at its most: 
nervous tension could conceive. The drugged public 
accepted the inanity in stupefied content. The or- 


24 PERELLA 


chestra played ‘Madame Butterfly” while a brave little 
two-seater car, driven by a big-eyed girl, swam a boil- 
ing river. 

“This is just the place for us,” said Anthony, as they 
took their seats. ‘‘Now we can talk like people in a 
Dostoievsky play. You'll tell me all about you, and 
I'll tell you all about me; and then we'll compare notes, 
and find we haven’t been listening to each other at all, 
and we’ll have to do it all over ma which will be 
lovely, won’t it?” 

“You begin,” said Perella. 

But youth is youth. And the irony of youth is that 
the subjective fades before the insistent objective. The 
idiot story, all the more unintelligible because it was 
half told when they entered, gripped their delighted 
and satirical attention. When the end came, they 
eagerly awaited the re-unfolding of the reel, so as to see 
the joys which they had missed. It was only when they 
caught up with their first scene that interest waned. 
They remained silent for a time. The projected talk 
would not come spontaneously. Perella suggested the 
lateness of the hour. 

“And we can’t watch this dreadful thing going on 
over and over again. We'll go mad!” 

He rose. “You’re right. You’re always right. 
But it seems to me as though I should never be able to 
tell you the story of my life.” 

Yet, when they found themselves in the narrow, 
thronged streets, again, and he took her arm under his 
in a protective, companionable way, Perella felt a de- 
licious sense of mtimacy, of a vast Highest Common 
Factor of existence between them. ‘Their souls had 
throbbed in unison before the majesty and beauty of the 
Past; and now their common modernity had rocked in 
sympathetic laughter. And then he said: 


PERELLA 25 


“Tt doesn’t matter, dear Miss Conscience. We're 
having a splendid time.” He hailed a victoria. “So 
splendid that I’m not going to let you get dog-tired and 
hate me. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s being hated.” 

She yielded meekly, too happy for argument. The 
drive was the sensuous end of the most amazing chapter 
of her life. She shivered a little, more from realization 
of wonder than from cold. Whereupon he pulled off 
his coat and threw it over her, and tucked it up around 
her as far as it would go. Her protests rang feeble 
and unconvincing. 

“Except when I came from the station, this is the 
first time I’ve driven in Florence.” 

“We'll drive like this together every day and all 
day,” he declared. 

“I don’t see how you can afford it,” she said. 

“Neither do I.” He laughed gaily. “But think of 
the joy of doing things onecan’t afford! I often won- 
der whether I’m a very lucky chap or the son of Mis- 
fortune. It all depends on the way you look at it. 
Here was I brought up in luxury. Just had to stick 
both hands in my dear old father’s pockets, and out 
came all the money I wanted. And then, suddenly— 
everything went phut. ‘There wasn’t a bean among the 
lot of us. It killed my poor old father. I?ll tell you 
about it some day.” 

Her hand instinctively crept beneath the overcoat 
and sought his. 

“Oh, how dreadful!” 

He squeezed her hand. “You’re a dear. It was. 
We were great pals, you know. Well—what was I 
saying? Oh, yes. The problem. One fellow says 
that it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have 
loved at all. Another, that sorrow’s crown of sorrow 
is remembering happier things. I don’t know. At 


26 PERELLA 


any rate, I’ve learnt how to enjoy life when I get the 
chance.” He squeezed her hand again, and, bending 
forward, smiled into her face. “I’m enjoying it now.” 

They came out on the Lungarno, by the Palazzo 
Tempi. ‘The scudding clouds had cleared, and opened 
out a night of stars. Florence stretched away across 
the river. ‘The dome of the Duomo loomed vague and 
far away; but Giotto’s campanile leaped gleaming into 
the firmament. Below them, the river ran dark with 
many shadows. 

The cab drew up at the door of the Pension Toselli. 

“My dear Lady Conscience,” he said, when they en- 
tered the fusty vestibule, “let us shut our eyes and run 
upstairs and go to bed, and never open them again 
until all is cool and beautiful darkness.” 

The foolish yet romantic phrase rang in Perella’s 
ears as she lay in the darkness of her little back room, 
wide awake for most of a wonder-whirling night. To- 
wards dawn she fell asleep, and—alas, for Michael 
Angelo and Benvenuto and Giotto! or, on the other 
hand, they may have had a great deal to do with it— 
her last drowsy sensation, with the rough blankets 
drawn up close under her nose, was the comfortable 
smell of a rough tweed overcoat. 


CHAPTER III 


AnTHOoNY Bake, orphan, faced the world, like 
Orlando, with “but poor a thousand crowns,” or pounds 
in this case, his heritage from the welter of his father’s 
affairs. What should he do with it? One of his sis- 
ters, married to the Head Master of a Public School, 
advised profitable investment. His other sister, the 
wife of a Major-General, and a woman of swashbuck- 
Img flippancy of outlook, said: “Blow it at once.” 
As neither of these counsels appealed to a young man 
standing mid-way in temperament between his two sis- 
ters, he rejected them off-hand. He had already 
broken away from the soul-building projects of Halli- 
day Armstrong, and had spent some time in the Art 
School of the Royal Academy, where he learned the 
rudiments of drawing from the figure. 

Prudence urged him back on bended knees to Arm- 
strong, who combined a squeaky voice with a robust 
kindness of heart. Besides, he had gone through the 
Architectural school at Cambridge, and was well on his 
way to the Final Examination of the Royal Institute 
of British Architects. 'The gates of a liberal profes- 
sion were open to him. Why not turn and enter them 
while yet there was time? But Anthony Blake exceed- 
ingly disliked falling down on bended knees. He had 
his pride. He also viewed, with profound distaste, 
the prospect of being even an eminent R.A.’s assistant 
on a very few hundreds a year for the rest of his life, 
unless there happened the absurdly fantastic: to wit, 
Armstrong’s offering him a partnership, or the win- 
ning of a gigantic competition which would enable him 


to put up a brass-plate outside an office of his own. 
27 


28 PERELLA 


Originally, when he had set his face against the 
dreary dealing with stocks and shares, he had conceived 
Architecture as a congenial avocation for a gentleman 
of artistic taste and ample fortune. The underground 
drudgery, good for his soul according to the sensitive 
artist, Halliday Armstrong, who knew that in no form 
of art can the butterfly emerge except from the chrys- 
alis stage of humility, was repugnant to his ideal of 
existence. He would not drudge; sooner die. For him 
the untrammelled life of brush or pencil. Here, there 
was no bending over drawing-boards, ruling lines by 
T-squares and drawing curves by geometrical formule, 
and measuring distances off finikin rules divided up 
into infinitesimal parts of inches, all for the guidance 
of a blockhead builder. Here one was free, with eye 
and arm and wrist and hand, to sweep lines and curves 
according to a man’s own bountiful inspiration. No 
setting off a human sweep of body, millimetre by milli- 
metre, with a pair of wretched dividers. A bit of 
chalk and a sheet of drawing paper, and the rest was 
whatsoever he chose to make it. He had a very pretty 
free-hand talent, and a cartoonist’s knack. His short 
career in the R.A. Schools was not without distinction. 
The prudent side of him tested a foundation for ar- 
tistic hope. The flippant and devil-may-care side 
which he had in common with his sister, Gloria, dreamed 
the delicious dreams of youth. 

“My dearest girl,” he said to her, towards the aa 
of the discussion on the disposal of the heritage, “Ellen 
is impossible. She looks at me through Everard’s arch- 
pedagogic eyes, as a Small Boy in an Eton collar who 
has to be trained in the Christian Virtues, and the 
Proper Conduct of Life. The nerve of it! She’s only 
ten years older than I am.” 

‘And I’m twelve,” said Gloria. 


PERELLA 29 


“Ym fed up with you too, although you’ve got more 
sense, though not much more, than Ellen. According 
to you I should have a couple of months’ good time and 
then take the dole. Are you and Frank going to sup- 
plement it?” 

“My dear boy! .. .” 

“Of course not. You’re a flaunting, extravagant 
queen. Poor old Frank’s up to his eyes in debt. As 
to Ellen—she’s off the map. If I went to her stary- 
ing, and asked for a meal, she’d calculate it out in vita- 
mines and calories. No, my dear; I’m not going to 
come down on either of you. I’m going into the wide 
world to seek my fortune and I shall husband my thou- 
sand pounds to the last penny. I’m going first to 
Italy to soak myself in the spirit of masterpieces. No 
one can be a painter who doesn’t know everything from 
Cimabue to Canaletto. My address for the next hun- 
dred years will be ‘care of Luck, Chance & Co., Earth, 
Cosmos. Please forward.’ ” 

And that is how Anthony Blake came to Florence, 
and, in conspicuous dinner-jacket, arrived late for din- 
ner in the Pension Toselli, and, in his light, generous 
and irresponsible way, turned the bewildered little head 
of Perella. 


The only comparatively elastic meal at the Pension 
Toselli was early breakfast. A plate supporting a 
hunk of bread and a pat of butter remained at a guest’s 
place at table from eight to half-past nine. At any 
time during that hour and a half the guest could ring, 
and Giuseppe, the melancholy serving-man, would 
bring coffee from some simmering vat in the kitchen. 
After 9.30 the table was cleared, and the would-be late 
breakfaster could press the electric button until the 
battery burst before anyone would take the slightest 


30 PERELLA 


notice of him. Only the Brabazon ladies were privi- 
leged to breakfast in their own rooms. Those reck- 
lessly spendthrift or gluttonous, who craved a relish 
to the meal, had their own little half-consumed store of 
marmalade, jam, sardines or fruit set beside their 
plates. Two indecently de-shelled cold hard-boiled 
eggs marked the seat of the Rev. Mr. Grewson. Mrs. 
Grewson, pallid and severe, seemed to have a passion 
for potted anchovy. 

She, sitting sternly beside the hard-boiled eggs of a 
sluggard husband, was scooping out the remains of a 
tin, when Perella entered, about half-past eight, and 
frigidly acknowledged the girl’s shy salutation. The 
American young women ate bananas, and squabbled 
over a map of Florence. The Basil Merrywethers, to 
judge by unclean remains, had been long since up and 
on their sturdy, pedestrian way. The Italian couple 
opposite ate morosely, and made obvious their non- 
appreciation of the coffee. Perella slipped into her 
seat, and, after the fashion she had learned in France, 
broke her bread into her coffee cup, saving up the pat 
of butter and a crust of bread as a last bonne bouche. 

he lingered over the meal, hoping that, through the 
open door of the dining-room, would appear the fasci- 
nating youth of the night before. But he came not. 
Mrs. Grewson, after much screech of chair against the 
tiled-floor, swept out with the air of a woman de- 
termined to tell her husband that his eggs were getting 
hot. The American girls went off in a clatter of 
tongues. The Italians called for fresh coffee, and, con- 
signing it with expressive gestures to the sewer, made 
a Fascisti exit. 

Perella alone, feeling, as usual, small in the big room, 
lingered wistfully, wondering what apostle of the bili- 


PERELLA 31 


ous could have designed the dreadful wall-paper with 
its sickly yellow background and its dead blue trellis- 
work. 

Mr. Grewson bounded in, wheezy and rubicund. 

“My dear young lady. I am indeed fortunate. I 
thought I would have a solitary meal.” He sat down 
and helped himself to salt. “I hope you and that 
charming young fellow, who seemed to be quite an ac- 
quisition to our circle, had a pleasant evening to- 
gether?” 

“Very,” said Perella. 

She rose. From his end of the long table he held up 
a protesting hand. 

“You’re not going?” 

“T’ve finished, and there’s my work at the Gallery.” 

She fled, her face aflame, conscious of a violent hatred 
of Mr. Grewson, and his waggish, clerico-paternal leer. 
He was the mouthpiece of all the cats and trouts, male 
and female, of the Pension. Her feminine instinct 
divined beastliness of innuendo. The moth-eaten salon 
had shrilled with cackle about her sudden elopement 
with the magnificent young man in a dinner-jacket. 
She rushed up to her back room, hating Anthony Blake, 
vowing that she would never see him again; or that, 
should he ever recross her field of vision, she would: 
look at him without seeing him. . .. Yes, that was 
why Mrs. Grewson, who never smiled otherwise than 
acidly, had grimaced that vitriolic greeting. That 
was why the American girls had ostentatiously taken 
no notice of her. . . . Oh, the whole thing was dam- 
nable! 

She sat on the edge of her yet unmade bed and cried 
over the desecration of the only wonder-hour of her 


life. 


32 PERELLA 


Soon afterwards she sat with easel and bedaubed 
canvas and painter’s paraphernelia before the miracle 
of paint she was trying to copy. She wished she knew 
more about Franciabigio, the friend of Andrea del 
Sarto. Obviously he was influenced by the Great and 
Faultless one, but he had his own conception of loveli- 
ness which redeemed his work from the charge of imita- 
tion. It had not the other’s quality of perfection 
which made you take a little quick breath as soon as 
one of his masterpieces first met your eyes. But it 
had infinite charm, and magical solace. 'To copy the 
Madonna del Pozzo was a joy. She felt that it lay 
within the limits of her comprehension. Had she been 
set before del Sarto’s majestic Madonna dell’ Arpie, 
her spirit would have failed, crushed beneath the sense 
of her littleness. But here was something exquisitely 
human. Just a pair of soft-fleshed babies, and the 
smiling Mother of Comfort. And, as she worked, she 
thought of Franciabigio, and wondered whether he was 
in Vasari. . . . She wanted to know more about him. 
But where could she find a Vasari? She thought of all 
kinds of technical and romantic things that hovered 
round about the central picture, in order to close her 
mind to any chance incursion of the young man, An- 
thony Blake. 

A fresh English voice behind her, pleading hunger to 
a zealous friend, aroused her to a sense of time, where- 
upon she packed up her things and hurried through the 
great galleries and down the lift, and tripped quickly 
along the familiar road to the Pension Toselli. 

She entered the dining-room a minute or two late. 
All the aquarium—the irreverent young man’s descrip- 
tion would enter her head—were assembled, with the ex- 
ception of the Basil Merrywethers. She saw Anthony 
Blake smiling at her from the far end of the table. 


PERELLA 33 


Other folks seemed to smile at her, even Mrs. Grewson. 
Madame Toselli stopped her as she passed, and handed 
her a visiting card. | 

*“You’ve had a caller this morning.” 

“And a very distinguished one,” said the elder Miss 
Brabazon, with an air of patronage. 

“Why didn’t you say you knew Mr. Gayton?” asked 
the younger. 

Perella reddened, and said “Oh!” and looked at the 
card—that of Mr. Silvester Gayton—with an address 
in the Viale Milton. 

She carried it in her hand and laid it beside her 
plate, as she took her seat beside Anthony Blake, to 
whose cheery greeting she replied distantly. But he 
was irrepressible. 

“They’re all frantically excited about that,” said he, 
pointing to the card. “The Archangel Gabriel coming 
to make an Announcement wouldn’t have caused a 
greater sensation.” 

“T don’t see why,” said Perella primly. “Professor 
Gayton is only a friend of my father’s.” 

“But the old insect’s the greatest bug in Florence— 
don’t you understand that? Don’t you know his books 
on the gaudy place? If one fellow four hundred years 
ago jabbed a brush of paint on another fellow’s picture, 
he spots it at once. The Italian Ministry of Bell Arte 
grovel before him. The old pussies up there were once 
introduced to him after a lecture, and were purring 
about it when I came in.” 

She helped herself to vague food. 

“How do you know all about him?” she asked. 

“How do I know about God and the Equator and 
Beecham’s Pills? Besides, I, humble worm that I am, 
have a letter of introduction to him in my pocket.” 

She might have guessed it. If he had told her that 


99 


34 PERELLA 


he bore introductions to the King and the Pope, she 
would not have been surprised. 

“Who gave it to you?” 

“Old man Armstrong, of course,” he replied care- 
lessly. ‘‘Who else?” 

A cloud swept across her vision of his splendour. 
She had a quick little practical mind. 

“But wasn’t Mr. Armstrong rather hurt at your 
leaving his office?” 

“Not so much as I. I’ve made a point of blotting 
out of my memory the words he used to me.” 

“Then,” said Perella, “it was very kind and forgiy- 
ing of him to give you this valuable letter of introduc- 
tion.” 

“My dear Conscience,” said he, “I’m admiring you 
more and more every minute.” 

Isolated by the deaf old lady on her right, and the 
morose Italians opposite, next whom were the vacant 
seats of the Merrywethers, they had all the talk to 
themselves. He described his morning in the City of 
Wonder. He had wandered about, and, by the aid of 
a map, had established his topography of Florence. 
He declared it a marvel of a place. At every street 
corner you were jostled by history. He had felt so 
sore and so black and blue that, after two or three hours 
of it, he had to crawl into Doney’s and have a cock- 
tar 

“But that’s a most expensive place,” she cried. “Of 
course I’ve never been there. . . . Besides, how did you 
know where it was?” 

Said Anthony, with his engaging smile: 

‘When you know me better, you will realize what a 
a man of infinite resource I am. I was in fainting need 
of stimulant. I approached a florid gentleman glued 
to the window of an antiquity shop. I took off my hat 


PERELLA 35 


in the manner of the Old School. ‘Pardon me, sir,’ 
said I, with unerring instinct. ‘Are you an Ameri- 
can?’ He said: ‘I am.’ ‘Then,’ said I, ‘will you 
have the kindness to tell an English stranger where he 
can get a cocktail in this city?? He smiled, and said: 
‘I will’—and directed me to the Via Tornabuoni.” 

Finding ‘no suitable response, Perella went on with 
her eating. 

“If you’re a good little untroublesome Conscience, 
I’ll take you to tea there.” 

She shook her head. She had to work. 

“But you can’t work after the galleries close. They 
turn you out. Just in time for tea.” 

“I don’t like that kind of tea.” 

“But why?” 

**Because ” said Perella. 

He noted an impatient gesture of her shoulders, and 
a tiny look of distress in her face; and a glimmer of 
her reasons dawned on his careless man’s mind. Who 
went to Doney’s otherwise than in furs and silken hose 
and dainty shoes? She confirmed his intuition by add- 
ing: 7 
“I’ve looked through the windows and don’t care for 
the kind of people I’ve seen there.” 

“We'll avoid it then, like the plague,” he said. “All 
the same,” he continued, “I’m glad I went im. [ve 
had an adventure.” 

In his glad, picturesque way he told her the history 
of a chance encounter. 

Sitting at a small table in the crowded middle room, 
along one side of which runs the bar, was an old Cam- 
bridge friend, Charlie Dent, entertaining a charming 
American lady. “Oh, quite an elderly lady, Conscience 
dear—let us say, in motor-jargon, thirty-five.” It 
was Dent who had recommended the Pension Toselli. 





36 PERELLA 


Anthony had thought him still in Rome, whence he had 
last heard from him. Dent was a very clever fellow, an 
engineer with an unhealthy passion for numismatics. 
Having come into much money, he had abandoned the 
bridge-maker’s trade and found the Meaning of Life 
in dangling over ancient coins and modern tea-cups. 

“The desperate fellow was drinking chocolate,” said 
Anthony. 

“I love chocolate,” said Perella demurely. 

“But you’re not a numismatical engineer who has run 
off with a proctor’s cap. It’s a great comedown for 
Charlie.” 

Of the nature of a proctor and the sacrosanctity of 
his cap, Perella had but a vague idea. She accepted 
meekly the condemnation of Charlie Dent. 

This was by no means the end of the Adventure. 
Who should walk in when he was half-way through his 
second cocktail—Perella’s subtle mind could gather 
that he had been entertained at Doney’s free of expense 
—hbut the very American of whom he had asked his 
way, with a “Hullo, Beatrice, Hullo, Charlie,” and sit 
down at the table. His name was Cornelius Adams, 
and he had a villa outside Florence. Anthony was 
going to see him one of these days. 

He rubbed his hands together. 

“Pretty crowded morning, wasn’t it?” 

‘“‘And the lady?” asked Perella. 

Anthony thought she lived in Florence. A Mrs. 
Ellison. Answered, according to the Adams man, to 
the name of Beatrice. She was off by car to Paris on 
the morrow, but hoped to see him when she came back. 

Perella crumbled her bread, and looked depressedly 
at the black and grey banana on her plate. He had 
already mounted into the Doney sphere that was his 
own, peopled by butterfly numismatical engineers, 


99 


PERELLA 37 


American millionaires who owned villas, and wealthy 
women, all furs and pearls and violets, who thought 
less of taking motor-cars to Paris than she of taking 
tram to the Cascine. For all his gay and intimate talk, 
he seemed piteously remote. 

But soon afterwards she found herself accompanied 
by him on her return walk to the Uffizi; more than that 
—to her easel in front of the Franciabigio, in spite of 
almost tearful protest. But his frank and vehement 
admiration comforted her artistic soul. She was the 
most amazing little tame Conscience that ever was. 
Henceforward he would follow her the world over, 
humbly holding up her train. He went off by himself 
to see the glories of the gallery, and returned towards 
closing time to the earnest little dark-eyed figure put- 
ting in the last few touches of the day. 

“Now we’re going to be really happy,” said he. 
“We've got hours and hours im front of us. The 
world is ours—to say nothing of Florence.” 

“Don’t you want to go to your friends?” she asked. 

“When you’re about I snap my fingers at the whole 
lot of them.” 

He had a merry eye and a persuasive laugh and a 
lithe young figure, and the impression she had of his 
dress was a careless yet elegant harmony of blues and 
browns. All her men acquaintances were distinguished 
by sloppy and untidy shoes. Anthony’s shoes were as 
neat as those best brown ones of hers which she had 
saved up for months to buy. And, as they walked to- 
gether, she glanced, with an idiotic pride, at the young 
man’s shapely feet. 

He gave her tea, not at Doney’s, but at the establish- 
ment of a humbler and more discreet panderer to Brit- 
ish superstition. Apparently unknown, it wore a dis- 
mal and stale appearance. Only two tables were 


38 PERELLA 


occupied, each by drooping tourist women. But to 
Perella, with Anthony’s gay smile opposite her, it 
seemed a Palace of all the Lovely Verities. And a 
flush came to her pale cheeks, and a light in her eyes. 
And at last, Anthony looking at her whimsically, said: 

“Do you know, Miss Perella Conscience, that you’re 
jolie & croquer?”’ 

“What’s that?” she asked, for, though she had 
roamed solitary about Paris, her French seemed to be 
deficient. 

“Pretty enough to eat—like a chocolate out of an 
expensive box.” 

Which, though exceedingly silly, pleased Perella 
more than any heretofore recorded utterance of man; 
and it deepened the gold of the afternoon sunshine 
when they went out into the street, and, when they 
emerged into the Piazza del Duomo, invested Giotto’s 
Campanile in the pink of porphyry soaring into the 
Empyrean. 

She mounted the fusty stairs of the Pension in a 
dream. 

“Tt’s rotten,” he said, “that I’ve got to go out to 
dinner to-night. Charlie Dent asked me. You see,” 
he added hurriedly, “I’ve got to earn a living somehow, 
and he may put me in the way of it. It won’t do to miss 
chances.” 

“Of course you must go,” she said, as though she 
were already responsible for his career. 

“But your” 

“I’ve had such a lovely tea,” said Perella. 

She was content. To ask more from the high gods 
than what they had given her that day would have been 
presumption such as in the mythical times of which she 
had read would have been punished by some peculiarly 


PERELLA 39 


unpleasant metamorphosis into a toad or a stinging- 
nettle or a Mrs. Grewson. 

“Pll pick you off your little stool at the gallery to- 
morrow morning,” he said, as they parted on the land- 
ing. . 
In the dark passage leading from the salon to the 
dining-room was fixed the screen where the guests’ cor- 
respondence was hung in clips. Now, few human be- 
ings are so forlorn that they abandon hope for a mes- 
sage from the outside world. Perella, as she passed the 
end of the corridor, cast an instinctive wistful glance at 
the screen. And there, in very truth, was a letter. 

It was written in a small, beautifully clear, pointed, 
scholarly hand. She turned the page to find it signed: 
“Yours sincerely, Silvester Gayton.” It ran: 


Dear Miss Annaway, 

May I introduce myself as an old friend of your father, 
who wrote to me a day or two ago telling me that you were 
in Florence. He did me so many a good turn in the years 
gone by, that, if it is in my power to be of any service to his 
daughter, I shall be only too pleased to render it. There is 
much to be seen in Florence that is closed to the general public. 

I was so sorry to miss you this morning when I called, but 
I was comforted by the information I received that you were 
at work at the Uffizi. 

I wonder whether you will do me the pleasure of taking tea 
with me to-morrow afternoon? I am diffident in asking you, 
for the Viale Milton is a long way from the Lungarno. 
But if I hear by telephone that you accept, you will find at 
four o'clock, standing outside the Uffizi public entrance, a car 
with a royal purple handkerchief spread over the steering 
wheel. If you will honour me by entering it, the chauffeur 
will do the rest. 

I have one or two things in my little collection which I hope 
may compensate you for your journey. 


40 PERELLA 


Perella dined, not disconsolately, talking across the 
table to the dusty Basil Merrywethers who had tray- 
elled by tram, train and on foot God knows where; 
and, after the meal, suffered gladly the facetie of the 
Rev. Mr. Grewson and the newly-stirred curiosity of 
the Brabazon ladies, who deferred for twenty minutes 
their sacred evening rubber of bridge in order to im- 
press upon her mind their knowledge of what the em- 
inent Professor Gayton knew about Florence. 

She went to bed early, a very happy Perella, trying 
to reconcile the long white beard and the patronizing 
manner with the tenor of the letter which she had just 
received. The final touch of puzzledom was the royal 
purple handkerchief on the steering wheel. No stuffy, 
snuffy old fossil could have thought of such a thing. 
There was something imaginative, simple, childlike 
about it. 

It was comic. She laughed. But it was very, very 
kind. She snuggled into her hard and nubbly little 
bed. It was almost a sacrilege to blot out all this Won- 
der of Life in animal slumber. She must live the day 
over again. 

Whereupon, in order to do so, she turned over with a 
happy sigh, and slept the profound, happy sleep of 
youth through the livelong night. 


CHAPTER IV 


Tue serviceable, old-fashioned car from whose 
steering-wheel the chauffeur had swept the royal pur- 
ple pall, drove up to the decorous pile of apartment 
houses on the bank of the Mugnone. Perella stepped 
out and mounted the stairs. An elderly woman serv- 
ant opening the professor’s door, showed her into a 
room, a very beautiful room, she thought, with a view 
far away over the northern hills, Monte Morello tow- 
ering among them. A wood fire was burning below a 
Renaissance fireplace. A few pictures, mostly Prim- 
itives, hung on an austere wall. The room was 
sparsely furnished; but Perella’s eye quickly appreci- 
ated the severe charm of the old rugs on the polished 
floor, and the perfection of chairs and tables and old 
Florentine book-cases filled with leather-bound vol- 
umes. Some old ivories lay about. A paper knife 
with chased silver handle lay across an open, half-cut 
French novel, the only note of modernity. She peeped 
at it—it was one of the Arséne Lupin series. She 
found it hard to reconcile a Professor with a reader of 
detective novels. 

This was the home of a man, a notorious bachelor—so 
much practical information had she gleaned from the 
Brabazon ladies. In her concept of man it was always 
difficult to rid her mind of parental impressions. A 
man’s room was her father’s ramshackle, dirty den, lit- 
tered with pipes, tobacco, magazines, newspapers, 
manuscript, slippers, and bananas of which he was in- 
ordinately fond. She could not imagine Anthony in 
this prim setting, though, of course, he would like it 
kept clean, and a fresh cretonne put, now and then, on 


his arm-chairs. . . . But, anyhow—she looked round 
41 


42 PERELLA 


again—it was a singularly beautiful and restful room. 

The door opened. Someone entered. 

“My dear Miss Annaway. Do forgive me for keep- 
ing you waiting. It seems so rude, but I really 
couldn’t help it.” 

It was no doubt her host, Silvester Gayton, but where 
were the white beard and the stuffiness and snuffiness? 
She beheld a little brown-haired man, with a bald patch 
on the top of his head, and,a little brown moustache, - 
who looked at her apologetically through thick near- 
sighted pince-nez. He was very neatly dressed. Ob- 
viously he was no longer young; his lined and withered 
face proclaimed the touch of the years; but he might 
have been any age, from forty to seventy. 

He fluttered around her with the air of a shy, elderly 
boy. 

“Do sit down.” He pulled a heavy old Florentine 
chair towards the fire. “I think this is fairly comfort- 
able. And you’d like some tea. Of course you 
would.” He rang a bell. “And won’t you take off 
your coat? There!” 

He gave it to the servant who entered immediately, 
and, having ordered tea, sat on a high-backed chair on 
the other side of the fireplace. Then he half rose. 
“Would you like a footstool? No? You see, I live 
so much alone that I don’t know. . . . If you can think 
of anything to make you more comfortable, please tell 
me.” 

Perella declared herself to be perfectly content; and 
then it dawned on her feminine mind that this eminent 
and awe-inspiring professor was even more nervous 
than she herself. She gathered up her courage. 

“Tt’s most kind of you to ask me to come and see 


ou.” 
“Not atall. Notatall. Your father once did mea 


PERELLA 43 


very great service. He fought a splendid battle for 
me in the press. I should have never been able 
to do it myself. You’re too young to remem- 
ey aad 

“Do tell me about it,”’ said Perella. 

“It wouldn’t interest you. It’s Ancient History.” 

“But I’m tremendously proud of my father,” said 
Perella. 

In a shy and diffident way he outlined the story of the 
battle. A Prussian critic had attacked him. ... He 
had written a little book about Italian Art. Those 
being days when nothing thorough could come from 
anywhere but Germany, all the English critics leagued 
themselves with the Teuton. He had falsified the 
philosophical history of Art; his attributions of dis- 
puted masterpieces were idiotic—in fact, the book was 
the work of an amateur ignoramus. A great London 
newspaper invited him to defend himself—he was in 
England at the time. They sent John Annaway to see 
him. John Annaway, convinced, and in possession of 
indisputable facts, took up his battle-ax and, in Sil- 
vester Gayton’s mild and archaic words, “went like billy 
’o for the whole lot of them.” He raked up the Prus- 
sian’s dreadful critical past. . . . There was a certain 
statue bought by him for Berlin as an authentic Prax- 
iteles which no one on earth except the then Kaiser, 
recognized as being other than an impudent modern 
fake. . . . He poured ridicule on the German’s theory 
of the Weltgeist manifesting itself in Fra Angelico and 
his followers, and . . . “Well,” said Gayton apologet- 
ically, “he won the battle for me. And then I wrote a 
little article for the Quarterly Review, which finished 
the thing up.” 

“But father wrote me that you were very kind to 
him,” said Perella. 


AA PERELLA 


“No, no,” said Silvester hurriedly; “that’s absurd. 
It’s his charming way of putting it.” 

Tea was brought in. He fussed round the table. 
He hoped she found what she liked. He had told them 
to get the biggest, thickest and stickiest cake in Flor- 
ence, and such odds and ends as would lead artistically 
up to it. The table creaked under the odds and ends, 
and groaned under the cake. Perella caught a little 
breath of wonder at the old silver tea equipage and the 
egg-shell china cups. He stood, deferential, before 
her. 

“Ts the tea as you like it?” 

She realized that she hadn’t tasted it, flushed, and 
said simply: 

“Everything you have is so beautiful.” 

He smiled. “I’m so glad you like beautiful things. 
If I dared give you advice, I should say, don’t let the 
instinct grow atrophied. It’s the greatest gift a hu- 
man being can have. Life’s full of beauty and the 
happiest people are those who know how to collect it. 
It has infinite forms. What you see around you is a 
poor little form. It has just happened by chance to 
have come my way. But there are spiritual forms—I 
don’t know whether I’m making myself clear—mem- 
ories of sunsets and bits of cool reaches of river, and a 
white city dreaming in the moonlight—which the con- 
noisseur can collect. . . . And then, of course, there 
are the most sacred beauties of all . . . your collection 
of what is most precious in the souls of human be- 
ings. ...” He laughed, shyly, and sipped his tea. 
“That, of course, takes a good deal of courage.” 

“What?” she asked. 

“Why, don’t you see? It’s like hunting for hidden 
treasure, or diving for pearls—every time an adven- 
ture. It isn’t everybody that’s adventurous.” 


PERELLA AD5 


Perella wondered whether that was the reason of his 
bachelordom; whether at the back of his little speech 
there did not lie an apology for filling his existence with 
the interpretations (however beautiful) of life, instead 
of the actualities of life itself—love, wife, chil- 
dren. ... 

He cut her a hasty wedge of the juicy cake and 
then went off to throw logs on the fire. 

“And now”—he turned—“your father said I might 
help you. If I can I will, of course. But first I must 
be impertinent enough to ask you what you are do- 
ing?” 

Emboldened by the tea, the warmth, the nervous fig- 
ure of the deferential elderly boy in the opposite chair, 
she narrated her simple history—or as much of it as 
mattered. Perella thought him the most sympathetic 
listener to whom she had ever spoken. He had an odd 
and delightful little way of getting ahead of her 
thoughts and finishing up her sentences. They dis- 
cussed the Madonna del Pozzo. It used to be attrib- 
uted, said he, to Andrea del Sarto—he and Francia- 
bigio had, she must remember, once worked on the same 
canvas. His Prussian enemy had done his best to per- 
petuate the old error. But anyone could see the differ- 
ence. 

“With half an eye!” cried Perella, forgetting that 
she was talking to one of the World’s Greatest Author- 
ities. 

He made a pleased little gesture, as though accept- 
ing her on the spot as a Sister Authority. Having 
learned how far she was advanced in her work, he said: 

“T know how painters hate it—but, if you could put 
up with me—I should so much like to see your copy. 
The growth of artistic things is so fascinating. I 
once went through the rehearsals of a friend of mine, 


46 PERELLA 


rather a famous actor. He was so flattering as to ask 
me to look over a Renaissance Italian setting—and 
really, to see an acted play in the making—the men 
and women struggling hour by hour in the throes of 
artistic creation—was a revelation. ‘To me far more 
interesting than the finished product. . . . You will let 
me come and see your copy soon, won’t you?” 

“Of course; I should love it,” she exclaimed. 

“May I come to-morrow?” 

Then suddenly she remembered, and went hot and 
cold all over, and knew not whether her cheeks were 
ashen or flushed scarlet. The Greatest Authority in 
the World was coming to see her poor little copy—and 
there was that impossible out-of-drawing bit of thigh 
of the chubby St. John. She gasped. 

“But as yet it’s dreadful. It’s all so difficult.” 

“Not if you treat it reverently. The moment you 
try to improve the fault of a masterpiece you’re lost.” 

His insight was uncanny. She looked at him in 
amazement. 

“How did you know?” 

“T happen to know—what shall we call it?—the 
snags of the picture.” 

Suddenly he rose in concerned apology. He was the 
worst host in Italy, which was saying a great deal. 
There was a box of chocolates which he had overlooked. 
And a box of cigarettes. He presented both. Her 
chastened mood prompted the choice of chocolate. He 
lit a cigarette. Then took her the tour of his treas- 
ures in his dining-room, work-room and an outer hall. 

“T suppose it’s childish,” said he; “but I do love 
showing these things to people who can appreciate 
them.” 

At the end of the tour she took her leave. He ac- 
companied her to the flat door; and, as he held her 


PERELLA AT 


hand, he looked at her rather wistfully, his head on one 
side. 

“My dear child—TI can call you so because I’m years 
older than your father—in order to get along in a 
rough world we all need plenty of courage—and I think 
you’ve gotit. Good-bye till to-morrow.” 

He opened the door. Then he suddenly left her and 
quickly reappeared with the ornamental box of choco- 
lates. 

“Forgive me—I’m an awful idiot. But I got them 
especially for you.” 

The waiting car took her back to the Pension Toselli. 
She wondered how old he was. He said he was years 
older than her father. He couldn’t be ninety. That 
was absurd. At moments, he seemed quite young. 
Altogether he was a puzzle—a delightful one, but a 
puzzle. Now and then, through his shy desire to please 
flashed a shaft of authority, revealing him for a mo- 
ment as a man of a certain greatness of soul and mind. 

When Anthony asked her at dinner: “Well, did 
you see the Grand Panjandrum?” his note of ir- 
reverence jarred. Instinctively she administered re- 
buke. 

“T didn’t personally ; but I’ve no doubt other people 
might have done.” 

He laughed. “Which means, my Guide, Philosopher 
and Conscience, that when I visit him I must go clad in 
the garments of humility.” 

“‘You’d better choose the garments carefully,” she 
retorted. 

Presently she relented. 

‘““He’s a very big man, of course, Anthony; but really 
he’s the very dearest of dears.” 

“Ts there a man who wouldn’t be that for the sake of 
your beaux yeux?” said he. 


48 PERELLA 


Perella, who was very young in the ways of men, met 
his laughing eyes and flushed and forgave him. And 
the wise youth adroitly pursued the turn of the conver- 
sation. 


There followed for Perella some weeks of unspoiled 
happiness. Professor Silvester Gayton, a meek little 
figure in an old-fashioned bowler hat, had appeared in 
the gallery, saluted deferentially by the uniformed at- 
tendant at the door, and had praised her copy of the 
Franciabigio, and, in his hesitating, apologetic way, had 
made valuable suggestions. The fruits of his approval 
manifested themselves shortly afterwards by an offer 
from a Florentine dealer for a copy of the Deposizione 
of Fra Bartolomeo in the Pitti, on behalf of an Argen- 
tine millionaire who was adding a Renaissance Picture 
Gallery to his palace in Buenos Aires. The road to 
fortune gleamed golden before her. Through Silves- 
ter Gayton she made the acquaintance of the Marchesa 
della Torre, an elderly English lady, a widow, who lived 
in a queer little old Palazzo poked away behind the 
Strozzi. The relations between the Marchesa and the 
Professor suggested to Perella’s nostrils the perfume of 
an old romance. 

When she told the Marchesa that her mother was an 
Italian, the daughter of a Roman poet, the old lady 
fervently insisted on her learning the language of her 
mother’s country, and produced from the whirlpool 
of her late husband’s family a pretty girl, one Lucia 
Demonetti, who was willing to give Italian lessons in 
exchange for English. The lessons were given in the 
Demonetti apartment, delightfully reminiscent, in a 
queer way, of the Battersea flat, for which, now and 
then, she felt a child’s nostalgia. As a medium of com- 


PERELLA 49 


munication the two young women employed a dreadful 
French. 

And there was Anthony all the time, gay, delightful, 
holding her heart in tender hands. Her wan and 
fragile beauty began to bloom from insignificance into 
definition. Even to herself she seemed to occupy a 
greater space in the world. ‘To her further content, 
Anthony had begun to work. All owing, said he, to the 
example and precept of his adorable Conscience. His 
Cambridge friend, Charlie Dent, had made him show 
his portfolio of old drawings to Cornelius Adams, the 
‘American gentleman who had set him on the cocktail 
path. Cornelius Adams had invited him to his villa 
and commissioned a crayon portrait for a favourite 
daughter in Scotland. Anthony had a bold line and 
a flourish and a magical trick of portraiture. The 
drawing commanded instant appreciation. Exhibited 
proudly by the possessor to the Anglo-American colony, 
it brought in two or three stray orders. He began to 
discuss with Perella the most suitable locality in which 
he could set up a studio. It became the nominal ob- 
ject of many walks during which they incidentally sat- 
urated themselves with the intimate atmosphere of 
beauty in paint and stone, which to all but Italians is 
the only reason for the existence of Florence. Thus 
Anthony Blake, dismissing with a supercilious hand the 
pulsating spirit of New Italy. Why should he or any 
foreigner care a hang about the modern significance of 
the place? Would a cultivated Italian go into the 
mildest of raptures over Glasgow or Manchester or 
Birmingham, which, as cities, could swallow up modern 
Florence and forget all about it? Florence only lived 
as an eternal message of the centuries. The very type 
and temper of the citizens were the same as in the days 
of the Gonfaloniere. The black-shirted Fascisti going 


50 PERELLA 


about the streets might have burned—or stopped the 
living cremation according to Piedmont—of Savon- 
arola. < 

He had the superficial history of the place at his 
tongue’s end. His academical studies in architecture 
at Cambridge had led him into the pleasant paths of 
Italian art which are inextricably intertwined with 
those of Italian history. He could put dates on arches 
and traceries and pilasters and cornices with incredible 
ease. She thought him wonderful. The travelling 
card of the Royal Institute of British Architects, duly 
visé-d by the Italian Consul in London, and the card of 
recommendation given to Perella by Professor Gayton, 
gave them privileges denied to the casual sight-seer. 
Now and again old instinct would compel him to an 
architectural sketch. Perella looked longingly at his 
deft fingers. Hers were of no use for delicate drawing 
. . . She wished someone would commission her to copy 
frescoes in Santa Maria Novella, or the cloisters of San 
Marco, while Anthony should look on. . . . Meanwhile, 
they did not find the studio. 

Anthony had presented his letter of introduction to 
Professor Gayton, and been politely received. 

‘““He gave me the impression,” said he to Perella, 
“that he had just been pulled by a conjuror out of a 
hat, and didn’t know where he was.”’ 

Perella laughed, the incorrigible youth having estab- 
lished in her eyes his charter of libertinage. But she 
would have liked more cordiality in the relations be- 
tween Anthony and the Professor. 'The latter’s ver- 
dict was: 

“Yes, my dear. Quite a talented young man. He’ll 
make his way, no doubt. I find he knows a number of 
people in Florence already. They’ll be of considerable 
service to him.” 


PERELLA 51 


And then he broke out into a panegyric on that really 
great man, Halliday Armstrong, R.A., whose erudition 
was equalled only by his artistry. Which was his 
nervous way of indicating that he had no peculiar use 
for Anthony Blake. 

“He really does love the old things,” said Perella. 

“As an artist he must,” said Silvester Gayton. 
“But he doesn’t love them quite in the way that you and 
I do.” 

This little talk took place one afternoon at the 
Marchesa’s, where she had met him taking tea. 

She had met him several times since his inspection 
of her picture—once or twice she had. gone, on his in- 
vitation, to the flat in the Viale Milton—refusing, with 
discreet wisdom, the offer of the car, and journeying 
thither quite comfortably by tram. One Sunday he 
took the Marchesa and herself up to Fiesole where, los- 
ing shyness of speech, he breathed the breath of life into 
the crumbling tiers of seats and the broken columns of 
the ancient theatre, and made the majesty of Rome live 
again before their eyes; filled the cold place with eager 
citizens, and enacted, so that they saw it vividly, the 
drama on the strange and unfamiliar stage. Here Per- 
ella, accustomed to rare gleams, came under the spell of 
his lambent genius. Now she understood why men had 
called him the inspired teacher and why half the gov- 
ernments and universities of Christendom had showered 
honours on his bald and modest head. By the magic of 
his art he had transferred, almost hypnotically, his per- 
fect vision to her brain. 

She remembered ee that the guardian had 
welcomed him with reverent obsequiousness and had ad- 
dressed him as Commendatore, which explained to her 
the meaning of the little rosette he wore in his button- 


hole. 


52 PERELLA 


Later the Marchesa had shown her his record in a 
treasured old Who’s Who? 

“Tf he wore all his hoods and decorations at once,” 
laughed the lady, “there’d be nothing left of him visi- 
ble.” 

Perella caught the date of his birth. Yes, he was 
quite old, far older than her father, who was not yet 
fifty. 

She remembered that, when they turned away to 
visit the cold little archeological museum near by, the 
Marchesa, had said to him: 

“My dear Silvester, what a wonder you are! How 
you make the past live!” 

And he had replied: 

“If you can’t see the past as a Living Thing, what’s 
the use of worrying about it? The present facts about 
ruins are as valueless as patient measurements of any 
old bit of jagged rock on a mountain side. And what’s 
the good of reconstructing the ground plan of a site 
like a geometrical puzzle, unless it leads to an accurate 
imagining of the whole building? 'To go to painting 
—what’s the good of staring like an idiot at my belovéd 
Primitives, unless you can project yourself into the 
historically-conditioned outlook on life of the painter 
and the people for whom he painted? Primitives are 
either dead or they’re astonishingly alive. When silly 
asses call Primitives ‘quaint,’ I see red, and want to bite 
them.” 

Perella thought of Anthony who had dismissed the 
whole lot of them—Cimabue, Giotto, Ducio, Spinello 
Aretini—with a gay wave of the hand. 

“They get at one somehow,” he had said. ‘“One’s 
sorry for them, I suppose. They meant well, but 
they’re funny old fowls just the same.” 

She wondered what the Professor would have said to 


PERELLA 53 


this. She pictured him perched on a chair and sav- 
agely biting Anthony’s ear. 

But this was only a passing sense of the comic, which 
made for endearing rather than disillusionment. She 
began to adore him in her young and tender way. 

His shyness, his horror of publicity, kept him remote 
from the ever-changing, semi-cultivated Anglo-Saxon 
society that, were it given its way, would have flowed an 
embarrassing, adulatory stream through his pleasant 
leisure from year’s end to year’s end. Hence, almost 
against his will, and certainly without his knowledge, 
there had gone up a legend of his unapproachable 
Grand Lama seclusion. On a lecture platform, in- 
spired by his poetic vision, he was a compelling force; 
in a cosmopolitan drawing-room, he became but a be- 
wildered and stammering undergraduate. Yet he was 
not unsociable. ‘To a few houses in Florence he went 
in secrecy as a delighted guest; and his intimates were 
welcomed in the beautiful rooms in the Viale Milton. 
All of this Perella knew; on the one side, from the gos- 
sip of the Pension Toselli, where, as one living under 
the xgis, as it were, of the awe-inspiring dictator, she 
felt humorously inclined to put on airs; and on the 
- other, from her own observation and the confidences 
of the Marchesa della Torre. 

His courteous, ever apologetic kindliness warmed her 
young life. Why he should ever have given a second 
thought to so insignificant a speck on his horizon as her- 
self, she was at a loss to imagine. She supposed it was 
on account of her wonderful father, to whom she wrote 
reams of glowing description which bored the uninter- 
ested journalist to tears. 

“All about this dismal fellow,” said he, displaying 
the sheets to the devoted lady who kept him out of the 
Fuddlers’ Club, “and not a word about my liver and 


54 PERELLA 


my gout and my dreadful struggle for existence. Lear 
is the typical father of all time.” 

Still, he was generous. On her birthday he sent her 
a Treasury Note for a pound, bidding her buy a nice 
little frock with it. Perella wondered whether father 
was ever more adorable than hers. 

This by way of parenthesis, to show one of the many 
gleams of the soft radiance under which Perella had 
her being. Star-dust, as it were, with her dear Pro- 
fessor serene and restful moon. But Anthony blazed 
in her firmament a wondrous sun. 


The day of days dawned for her on the Saturday be- 
fore Easter. For then, against even ecclesiastical as- 
tronomics, the sun and moon were to be in conjunction. 

The first thrill of it had been communicated a week 
before. Scarcely had she sat down to dinner than the 
dilapidated waiter rushed out and returned and whis- 
pered to Madame Toselli. Madame Toselli, command- 
ing silence, apostrophized Perella. 

“Miss ee Professor Gayton wants you on the 
telephone.” 

The light of expectation danced in her eyes, and she 
fled out, no longer feeling herself the smallest of all 
possible persons in the greatest of all possible worlds. 
Her intimacy with the Great Recluse had gained her 
the envious respect of the Pension. 'The Brabazon la- 
dies had invited her to tea in their musty little private 
sitting-room at the back, and, before seeking to pump 
her dry, had endeavoured to set themselves on the same 
plane by exhibiting a couple of letters, ornamented with 
butterflies, written by Whistler to their aunt. Madame 
Toselli had transferred her to a room with a less 
chimney-potty outlook, and offered, if she swore in- 
violable secrecy, to let her have her early breakfast 


PERELLA 55 


in bed. Also, one evening the Grewsons had invited her 
out to dinner to meet a pair of lost Archdeacons (male 
and female, and conjugally bound) from Demarara. 

Said Anthony: “If you make love to him over the 
telephone, Ill commit suicide by eating everything that 
is offered me.” 

Thus it was a Personage that, in the guise of a tiny 
scrap of humanity, slipped along the side of the table 
and out of the room. 

She returned, flushed and excited. 

“Oh, Anthony, isn’t it lovely? He has asked us to 
go to the Scoppio del Carro on Saturday!” 

“TJs aad 

She nodded brightly. ‘“Yes—us. You and me and 
us two. He goes every year, and always has the same 
baleony. Of course I said you’d come. You will, 
won’t you?” 

“Naturally. It’s jolly decent of him,” said An- 
thony. “I wonder what made him think of me.” 

A rare mood of gaiety caught her. 

“Who could ever see you, Antonio, without thinking 
of you?” 

He responded with uplifted hand. 

“Enough, woman. I’ve heard that sort of thing be- 
fore.” 

That is why the wings of the dawn awoke her to 
happiness on that Saturday morning. 


The whole of Tuscany seemed to be pouring through 
the narrow streets towards the Piazza del Duomo, as 
they made their way to the scene of the historical Burn- 
ing of the Car. To keep her by his side, Anthony 
tucked his hand beneath her arm, and steered her hap- 
pily through the welter of men and horses and groan- 

ing automobiles. Everyone looked excited and happy 


56 PERELLA 


and anxious, for it was a most important ceremony that 
was to take place—nay more—the last lingering au- 
gury sanctioned by the Church forecasting the sum- 
mer’s harvest. ‘The Babel precluded coherent speech. 
But what did words matter when his arm bent strongly 
round her to save her new hat from the wet nose of a 
cab-horse? 

The Piazza was seething with humanity when they 
reached the shop on the western side above which was 
Professor Gayton’s balcony. They mounted to the 
welcome of the proprietor who for years had placed his 
salon at the Professor’s disposal. They were the first 
comers; but the Commendatore would soon arrive—he 
looked at his watch—always in time for the great pro- 
cession. Here was the best view of the Scoppio in 
Florence. 

They went on to the balcony. On the right the 
‘white and black marble front of the domed cathedral 
flanked by the towering Campanile gleamed in the keen 
April sunlight. On the left stood the lesser but ex- 
quisite mass of the Baptistery. ‘The only place, from 
skyline to ground, clear of human heads and faces lay 
between the two buildings. And in the midst thereof, 
close to the Baptistery and centred with the great West 
Door, and, so, with the far away hidden High Altar of 
the Cathedral, rose heavenward the red and gold struc- 
ture of the Car, from whose shafts had been withdrawn 
the four pure white oxen, whose sole duty in life was to 
drag the Carro from and to its resting-place on one day 
of the year. And, just visible as the sunlight glinted 
here and there on them, two wires ran from the Car 
across the Piazza straight into the Great West Door. 

Humanity everywhere, at windows, on roofs, on 
rough deal stands; an ever-thickening crush below, as 
all Tuscany crowded into the great square from its 


PERELLA 57 


many tributary streets. Year after year, for centu- 
ries, the same crowd had gathered to see the same queer 
and childish, yet soul-uplifting spectacle. 

“Charlie Dent,” said Anthony, “is the miserablest 
worm of a fool unstamped on.” 

Perella asked why. He swept a hand. 

“He wanted me to cut this out and motor to some 
rotten villa for lunch. Talked through his ugly hat. 
By the way, he wears the filthiest hats I know—soft 
brims turned down. I hate ’em. Never trust a man 
with that kind of hat... . Lord! I wouldn’t have 
missed it for the world. Don’t you feel the thrill of it?” 

They were leaning over the balcony rail and their 
arms were touching. Perella drew a little breath of 
content. Certainly she felt the thrill of it. 

Soon they were joined by the Professor, neat in a 
new tweed suit of old-fashioned cut, the jacket tightly 
buttoned, bowler hat and gloves; the old Marchesa, 
stout and rather lame; the Master of the Cambridge 
College, his wife and daughter; and a deliciously 
rugged, untidy, red-headed man with an eye-glass, 
whom Perella felt sure she would love, long before she 
realized him as Mr. Haddo Thwaites, sculptor and 
Royal Academician. 

“My dear,” said Gayton, in his fussy, nervous way, 
“T want you to take good care of Miss Edwardes, you 
being a resident, she a visitor.” His eyes beamed be- 
hind the thick lenses of his glasses. “I count on you 
to do the honours.” 

Thus was her function prescribed in the somewhat 
lordly company. But what of Anthony? Out of the 
tail of her eye she saw him bracketed with Mrs. Ed- 
wardes, a severe, high-nosed lady with a mission in life, 
hovering on the tantalizing borderland of the obscure 
and the obvious. 


58 PERELLA 


It was only afterwards that Anthony resolved her 
problem. 

“‘A channel,” said he, “through whom run Dons past, 
present and future.” 

Dr. Edwardes, layman, scientist, up-to-date Head of 
a venerable college which he was pushing to the front 
with almost American energy, was paired with the Mar- 
chesa, an old friend. ‘Thus were the six chairs in the 
front of the balcony occupied. Again, out of the tail 
of her eye, did Perella glance backward at the Profes- 
sor. He caught her glance, almost winked, so that she 
was delightfully conscious of a confidential message. 
He was perfectly happy with Haddo Thwaites, who 
stood over him with a grip on both shoulders, shaking 
him as though he loved him. 

She turned to the pale girl by her side, who seemed a 
curious negative of feminine coquetry in attire and 
manner. Miss Edwardes wore black stockings and 
stout black shoes with which could woman born, pul- 
sating with a thousand spring certainties, hopes and 
fears, refrain from contrasting the juxtaposed fawn 
silk and dainty fawn suéde? And in her timid, gentle 
way, Perella tried to carry out her host’s behest. Said 
Amelia Edwardes, in her second year at Girton, in 
reply to the obvious commonplace: 

“Of course I’ve read all about it. It has an archeo- 
logical interest ; but doesn’t it strike you as being dread- 
fully silly?” 

She waved her hand to the surging crowd below, to 
the barbaric car, for which the banks of the Ganges 
_ were perhaps a fitter setting than the banks of the 
Arno, to the quivering, dancing wires. 

“Just look at them now.” 

A child’s balloon—there were many vendors in the 
crowd—had escaped, and came soaring, a red, minia- 


PERELLA 59 


ture Mars, over the Bargello, into the infinite height of 
the blue. In an instant the massed Piazza became a 
shimmering mass of upturned faces, like a vast field 
of wild flowers stirred by the breeze. 

The young lady from Girton cast upward a scorn- 
ful glance. 

“Did you ever see anything so idiotic? These peo- 
ple are really in the same state they were in four hun- 
dred years ago.” 

Perella spent a few deliberate moments in travel to- 
wards this new point of view. She failed to reach it. 

“But that’s the beauty of this—well, this show—to- 
day. It bears out what Professor Gayton is always 
saying. He said it wonderfully the other day. ‘So 
long as the past lives, the present can’t die.’ ”’ 

“What about the future?” asked Amelia Edwardes, 
with a twist of her thin lips. 

Parrot Perella quoted: 

“It’s the child of the Present, and the grandchild of 
the Past.” 

““Plausible, but damned nonsense,” said Miss Ed- 
wardes. ‘“There’s an undistributed middle somewhere 
in the logic. Dead things are dead, and they can’t 
come to life again. If anybody handed me my great- 
grandmother’s skeleton as a great treat, I’d say: 
‘Take it away and burn it and make chlorate of potash, 
or whatever you make of bones, with it, and use it for 
manure, but don’t ask me to be sentimental.’ ” 

Perella again pondered awhile. 

““But the chlorate of potash, or whatever it is, would 
make things grow, wouldn’t it? Even the old bones 
would carry on.” 

Miss Edwardes dismissed the argument. 

“We're talking of psychology, not chemistry. Just 
look at this. What can it mean to human reason?” 


‘60 PERELLA 


From the cathedral, heralded by a murmur of the 
populace, streamed an august procession, incense- 
swinging, crozier-bearing, chanting; boys gorgeous in 
scarlet and white lace; priests in Easter vestments; mi- 
tred bishops, dazzling in gold brocade; each personage 
who emerged from the western door seeming the last 
word in ecclesiastical splendour, till the appearance, 
under the velvet canopy, of the scarlet-robed Cardinal 
Archbishop of Florence. Majestically it wound across 
the open space, and gradually and inevitably it disap- 
peared into the Baptistery. 

“What meaning can it have?” asked Miss Edwardes 
scornfully, after having watched the pageant with un- 
conscious interest. 

“'They’ve gone to bless the fonts in the Baptistery,” 
replied Perella literally. 

“IT know that. But what’s the good of blessing fonts 
when none of these people have baths once a life-time?” 

“They wouldn’t be any cleaner if the fonts weren’t 
blessed,”’ said Perella. 

“Oh, yes they would. Of course I’m talking sym- 
bolically. You only have to preach hygiene with the 
same fervour as you do mystical theology.” 

“You'd miss all this picturesqueness and colour—and ~ 
spirituality—even though you mayn’t believe in it,” 
said Perella. 

Amelia Edwardes sniffed. She had met reaction- 
aries like Perella before. People like her would con- 
demn their fellow-creatures to die of ague in rotten, 
moss-sodden, thatched cottages, just because they 
looked so pretty. Perella, no great arguer, lent a 
meek ear, but kept a keen eye on the happenings in 
front of her. ‘They were interesting. A ladder was 
brought up to the car, and a man ordinary to view, but 
the most important and nerve-racked being there that 


PERELLA 61 


day, mounted it to secure the wires; for if the burning 
of the car should fail, grievous were the hopes of Tus- 
cany, to say nothing of the man himself, execrated by 
the populace, going without payment. In fiercer and 
more resolute times, his unskilful predecessors were put 
to death. And while he was nervously employed the 
stately procession returned to the Duomo. 

The hour of noon approached. Professor Gayton 
squeezed behind the chairs and touched Perella’s shoul- 
der. She turned up a smiling and grateful face. She 
felt it characteristic of him to leave all these important 
people and raise her, as it were, out of her own insig- 
nificance. 

“Keep your eyes on the door,” said he. 

On the first stroke of twelve there whizzed from the 
west door along the wires, a silver dove with a train of 
flame, lit at the High Altar from the sacred fire brought 
from the Holy Land six hundred years ago. It flew 
across the Piazza straight into the heart of the car, and 
then like a flash made its return journey. In one in- 
stant the car became a bedevilment of fireworks and 
smoke. The vast multitude yelled with joy. The 
bells in the great belfry clanged a deafening triumph. 
The car thundered like a battle. The scene shimmered 
before Perella’s eyes as an apotheosis of human rapture. 

“Damned silly,” said the young lady from Girton. 

Perella awakened. “It isn’t,” she cried, indignantly. 
“It’s lovely !” 

The company on the balcony waited for the melting 
of the crowd. The last squib in the car exploded all 
alone, by quaint way of anti-climax. The four white 
oxen were harnessed to the car for the completion of 
their year’s work. And the proprietor of the balcony 
handed round a tray of glasses of vermouth which they 
drank in the salon. Anthony came to Perella’s side, 


3 


62 PERELLA 


glowing with enthusiasm. Childish the show, of course, 
but beautiful, like all legend and the survival of legend. 
There were times when it was good for the soul to be a 
child and think and not to put away childish things, in 
spite of the good St. Paul—or was it St. Peter? He 
thought it was Paul, because Peter, being a married 
man, was more human. 

Silvester Gayton, hearing him, advanced a nervous 
step or two. 

“So glad you appreciated it. So glad. So very 
glad.” 

Perella was overjoyed. At last Anthony had won 
the Professor’s heart. Now all was for the best in the 
best of all possible worlds. 

“I wish I’d been sitting next to you,” said he. 

“So do I,” said Perella. 

“Never mind. We felt everything the same. And 
that’s the main thing, isn’t it?” 

Two minds with but a single thought! Two hearts 
that beat as one! (Vide a funny old play of the long 
ago.) Of course that was the main thing. Perella 
nodded at him with shy brightness. 

The world transcended her imagined possibilities of 
bestness on that remarkable day. She discovered that 
the Professor had invited them all to lunch at a restau- 
rant. At Betti’s she lost sense of time and space until 
she found herself sitting at a round table between Dr. 
Edwardes and Haddo Thwaites. Anthony across the 
table sped her a wry glance, as though to say he was 
still on duty. She responded with a little sense of 
proprietorship. On occasion, discipline was good for 
young men. 

There followed a miracle of a meal. Young women 


brought up in back bedrooms by shaggy, out-at-elbows — 


members of the Fuddlers’ Club, and then thrust out into 


—_— ee eee ee ee ee _—— bee ie, rw oe 


ee a ee a ee ae 


PERELLA 63 


the world to fend for themselves on sixty pounds a year, 
seldom eat in lordly banqueting houses. They also sel- 
dom have as luncheon neighbours the Head of a Cam- 
bridge House, and an eminent sculptor. But for the 
happiness racing through her veins and going to her 
head like wine, she would have felt the most frightened 
insignificant atom on earth. And lo! the jovial artist, 
though flanked on the other side by the latest product 
of Girton intelligence, began to talk to her as if he had 
known her, not all her life, but all his—which was con- 
siderably longer. And he knew her master at Chel- 
sea, a personage stern and aloof, whom he alluded to as 
Binkie though his name was Cochrane, and many of his 
Chelsea contemporaries; and he had fraternized with 
her father at the Savage Club of which he was a mem- 
ber. He told her stories which made her laugh; he de- 
murely stuffed Miss Edwardes’ Economics full of 
squibs, and at the right moment exploded them, as the 
Dove did those lurking in the Carro. 'The lady, as she 
was reading for the Political Essay Tripos, grew angry. 
He, a Cambridge man, made her angrier, by bewailing 
the fact that the University seemed to have Triposes for 
everything—Cabbage Planting, Tripe Dressing, As- 
sassination. With regard to the last, he deplored the 
passing away of the old order of seniority. The Senior 
Assassin of his year—what a distinction! Amelia Ed- 
wardes gazed fishily at him for a second or two, and 
her eyes said: “You poor fool,” and she went on 
with her food, not without commendable gluttony. 
Thwaitee caught Perella’s eye and laughed, and, after 
a while, entered into controversy with the courteously 
dogmatic Master, and upheld Perella and himself as 
brother artists inseparably leagued to fight materialism 
in the sacred cause of Art. 


Her pulses throbbed. People like Haddo Thwaites 


64 PERELLA 


were her people. Afier all, she was a child of a mag- 
nificent reprobate and a half-remembered mother of un- 
known Italian ancestry. And across the table was An- 
thony, on his best behaviour, knowing, shrewd fellow, 
that his worth was being tested by his timid yet power- 
ful little host, conversing in debonair fashion with the 
two Edwardes ladies, mother and daughter, but all the 
time pricking an envious ear to the robust and laugh- 
ing talk of Haddo Thwaites. He, too, was of her own 
people; the people who could see and feel and under- 
stand all in a flash. She conceded to the Edwardes 
folk an important place in the intellectual sphere. But 
that sphere would never be hers. Sociology as formu- 
lated crudely by Amelia Edwardes, and subtly, and in- 
deed, humorously, by the young lady’s father—for the 
progressive, non-clerical Master of a great College must 
necessarily have the charm and the quick touch upon 
life of the accomplished man of the world—was as mean- 
ingless to her half-educated mind as the technical en- 
gineering details of a battleship. As for Mrs. Ed- 
wardes, she seemed to be nothing but a Hotel Register 
of Academic personalities, without any other obvious 
reason for existence. No. ‘They were not her peo- 
ple. She belonged to the big, generous sculptor, to 
the quick and impulsive Anthony. . . . Yes, and to the 
shy, antediluvian boy of a bald-headed professor who 
knew all that there was to be known about beauty. 


About three o’clock on that magical April afternoon, 
Perella and Anthony found themselves happy wander- 
ers in the streets of Florence. He threw his arm round 
her shoulders in a transient grip. 

“Thank God I’ve got you to myself at last!” 

She laughed. “I think we’ve behaved ourselves very 
nicely.” 





PERELLA 65 


“Not much merit in your behaving nicely, Perella, 
my Conscience,” said he. ‘It’s I who have been noble.” 

“Let us find a site for a statue for you. It'll be 
something to do,” said Perella. 

““You’re two foot nothing and you weigh about three 
pennyweights, and you’re the only really adorable thing 
I’ve come across in my devastated life. Where the 
blazes can we go so that I can tell you exactly what I 
mean?” 

“There’s quite a respectable salon in the Pension 
Toselli,” said Perella. 

“There is also the Boboli Garden where there are foun- 
tains and statues and all the marvels of spring. And 
here’s a chariot especially sent down from Heaven for 
us by the goddess.” He held up an arresting hand. 
“Strip the horse-hide off them, and you’ll find a pair of 
doves and the young bandit on the box has wings un- 
der his jacket, and his whip is only a camouflaged bow.” 

They entered the chariot. ‘The journey to Cythera 
began. He put his arm around her. 

“T had an idea when I first sat down by you in that 
place of abomination, that you had come straight out of 
a fairy tale.” 

In the welter of her pride and her humility she whis- 
pered: | 

“Why? I don’t seem to be of much account.” 

“You're a sensitive flame, my dear, labouring under 
the delusion that you’re a woman.” 

His arm gripped her little body tighter. His free 
hand caught her chin. In her eyes was the tragic look 
of the most radiantly happy woman who, for the first 
time, gives herself. He kissed her in the open streets 
of Florence. 

Little of importance remained to be said in the Bo- 


boli Garden. — 


PART II 
ANTHONY 
CHAPTER V 


For a young Orlando with scant heritage, Anthony 
Blake found life exceedingly pleasant. He had fallen 
in love with an elfin thing responsive to any chord he 
cared to strike, yet reserving in the depths of her all 
kinds of delicious and delicate mysteries which, he 
knew, she would shyly, gradually, yet never completely 
reveal during a life-time. He was an honest youth, and 
a poet in his way. It did not occur to him that his 
dainty lady had made unconditional surrender on the 
first magical night of their meeting. In his masculine 
way he gave never a thought to her half-starved and 
a-hungered emotions. In the days of his prosperity he 
had been on the modern hail-fellow-well-met terms with 
a hundred young females of his class. Some were good 
friends whose disconcerting frankness precluded senti- 
mental relations. Others, with a frankness equally dis- 
concerting, offered themselves to him—they were his for 
the marrying—and when he declined, gave him to un- 
derstand that he was rather an ass, but bore no further 
malice. Living cleanly (for all that mattered), lov- 
ing the bubbles of life in healthy fashion, he passed 
through the galaxy of nymphs unscathed. ‘Time to 
marry when he was thirty, by which time he would find 
the one and only girl in the world. 

He argued it out once with his eldest sister, Gloria, 
who had up her sleeve, so to speak, a desirable and de- 
siring damsel. He would live, said he, all being well, 
till he was at least seventy. Married at thirty, he 
would have forty years to live with the same woman, 
supposing for the sake of argument she was as tough 
as himself. Well, didn’t the dear thing see that he 

66 


a a e 


ANTHONY 67 


wasn’t going to gamble away his existence except on a 
certainty? On the one hand, he refused to go bald- 
headed for a girl who obviously didn’t care a hang for 
him, but who might marry him on account of the posi- 
tion he could offer ; and, on the other, young women who 
threw themselves at his head made him positively sick. 
If social law allowed the trial trip, all would be well. 
At the end of a year or so, if it didn’t work it would 
be, on both sides, “Good-bye, old thing. Sorry. Bet- 
ter luck next time.” And so da capo. All might be 
exceedingly well. He would go so far as to say that it 
might be a succession of fascinating experiences up to 
the various snag-times. But no. All these young 
things expected you to take them on—on sight—for 
forty years. It couldn’t be done. Of course, there 
were such things as divorces—but those were beastly. 
You didn’t marry a girl with the mirage of divorce 
shimmering behind the parson in his white surplice. 
Forty years! It took a lot of thinking about. 

Thus Anthony, passim. Said Gloria, a comfortable 
lady, in love with life: 

“T was engaged to Freddie after a three weeks’ ac- 
quaintance, and married him after seven.” 

“And look at the poor devil now!” exulted Anthony. 

Of course, said he, she had sat up and begged for it. 
Her concerns were beside the question. His own were 
under discussion. Did she know her Rabelais? No. 
Did Freddie? She replied that modern Major- 
Generals with their hands full of armies and wives 
hadn’t time to fool about with stuffy old French classics. 

“If only he had occupied the seven weeks you talk 
about,” said he, “in studying the arguments between 
Pantagruel and Panurge on the advisability of Pan- 
urge marrying, you'd be having a very thin time now, 
my dear.” 


68 PERELLA 


Heart-whole, his head a medley of delights over ma- 
terial and spiritual things, from broiled lobster to 
Michael Angelo, he arrived in Florence, sat down at 
the dreadful Toselli table, and there, next to him, was a 
tiny something in a wisp of an old mauve frock with 
a sensitive little face and adorable little hands, and a 
pair of quiet dark eyes, which was like nothing he had 
seen or thought of in the world before. . . . 

He remembered her first utterance—in answer to his 
question if she was English. “Yes, of course.” The 
dainty music of it! 

And her shy woodland ways! 

He disdained the thought, almost the knowledge, that 
she had spent her life in back bedrooms overlooking 
bricks and mortar. 

And her name—Perella—it might be the name of a 
bird. 

There was, indeed, something bird-like about her. 
‘And all a wonder and a wild desire.” What damned 
useful people poets were! 

Anthony was in love, as much as a healthy and poet- 
ical and artistic young man can be. He discovered 
new beauties and reticences and delicate veins of hu- 
mour ‘and wisdom in Perella day by day. When, in 
pursuit of his making crayon portraits of the opulent, 
he was not retained to lunch, they often met for their 
midday meal in a haunt remote from the atmosphere of 
austere decay of the Pension Toselli. This was a res- 
taurant running through the cellars of a house or two. 
You dived off the pavement into a dark hole, passed - 
hissing, steaming, bubbling pots and pans, presided 
over by white-capped cook and myrmidons, and 
emerged into yellow-washed vaults furnished with ta- 
bles and rough appurtenances, and adorned with flam- 
ing posters. ‘The food was good, the wine was cheap, 


ANTHONY 69 


and the company of endless variegation. To pay 
twice over for a meal was sinfully wasteful, but allur- 
ingly extravagant. They ate coarse dainties such as 
Madame Toselli would not dare offer to her genteel 
guests, and smoked between mouthfuls, a joy forbidden 
by the stern etiquette of the Pension. Indeed, the Bra- 
bazon ladies manifested displeasure if anyone lit a ciga- 
rette before the last woolly mouthful of the last wizened 
apple was eaten, and only tolerated the smell of tobacco 
for the few moments necessary for the consumption of 
their tepid coffee. Here, on the other hand, at Fra- 
tello’s, was freedom of body and speech. They could 
talk as loud as their neighbours—louder, if they were 
wise—for then they had the chance of hearing each 
other across the table. 

Now and then Anthony brought his friend, Charlie 
Dent, a fresh and pleasant youth who, knowing the be- 
trothed relations of the pair, treated Perella with a gay 
deference which pleased her mightily. Now and again, 
too, Perella brought Monica Despard, a vague girl who 
had been a fellow-student in Chelsea, and whom she had 
run across in Florence, vaguely continuing her art 
studies. Once or twice Charlie Dent entertained them 
at Betti’s, and took them afterwards to his queer apart- 
ment in order to feast their eyes on his collection of 
Roman coins. Perella, so long as she was with An- 
thony, would have gazed with rapture on a collection of 
skeleton ribs of beef, and been perfectly happy; but 
Anthony, in his masterful way, consigned Roman coins 
to Hades, strummed the newest airs from Musical Com- 
edy on the piano, and turned the scientific gathering 
into a vocal orgy. ‘Then they walked home together 
loverwise. 

“Anthony dear, will you always care for me like 
this??? 


70 PERELLA 


All the grim palaces of Florence which had listened 
to lovers’ impassioned vows for centuries, heard her and 
smiled cynically. 

They were engaged. He bought her a ring—an ex- 
quisite onyx intaglio set in a thin rim of gold. But the 
engagement, they decided, should not be announced, in 
view of its prospective inordinate length. The Pen- 
sion Toselli must be kept in abysmal ignorance, where- 
fore Perella wore the ring on any old finger except the 
one of significance. Their ambitions were modest: a 
little Montparnasse flat in Paris, a bungalow on the 
river, within easy reach of London, a handy little car, 
and a faithful, hard-working Italian cook who would 
follow them everywhere. 'There would be studios in 
both places where they would work, one at each end. 
Perella’s copying drudgery would be over. She would 
paint figures from the live model, and make much 
money; while he would portrait himself mto celebrity. 
What could be wrong with the plan? ‘They furnished 
the flat and the bungalow twice over with treasures seen 
through the windows of the antique shops of Florence 
the Beautiful. 

Anthony wrote to his sister Gloria a letter of extraor- 
dinary length and conscientious rhapsody, to which she 
replied by telegram: ‘Dear silly ass!” 

This made him very angry; for he had minutely ex- 
plained that, though Perella would marry him to- 
morrow without thought of the future, such being her 
unique, unprecedented character, yet it would be wicked 
of him to take advantage of her ultra-human trust until 
he could provide adequately for her comfort. 

“I’m through with Gloria,” said he. “I thought she 
was my friend. I'll never speak to her again.” 

“You must have written her awful drivel, dear,” 
said Perella. 


ee ee ee Se ee a 


eee ee ee, 


ANTHONY gt 


“Oh, you sympathize with her, do you?” 

Perella nodded. ‘Do write to her again, and tell her 
I’m dying to meet her. I think she must be the dearest 
thing in the world.” 

““She’s just a cat of no intelligence,” said Anthony. 


Thus Anthony and Perella. Meanwhile the days 
lengthened through the sweet of May into the flame of 
June. In July Florence began to grow uncomfortably 
warm, whereupon many residents fled to the imaginary 
climatic perfection of London or Paris, leaving the pen- 
cil of a young portraitist ready but idle. 

Now, things had happened. No one who, within 
three or four months, has established for himself a 
happy vogue in making portraits of the nobility and 
gentry of an important locality, can pass through such 
a social range like a ghost untouched by adventure. 
Anthony’s facile art, and his gay manner had carried 
him through Florentine society. He had made influ- 
ential friends. As he told Perella, he wallowed in ad- 
vice. | 

Among his main advisers were his first friend, Cor- 
nelius Adams, and the American lady, Mrs. Beatrice 
Ellison, whom he had met for a few fleeting minutes on 
his first entrance into Doney’s. 

Mrs. Ellison returned to Florence at the end of 
April. She lived in a historical villa on the way to 
Fiesole, where she entertained the select world of Italo- 
Anglo-American Florence. Thither in early May was 
Anthony conducted by Cornelius Adams and Charlie 
Dent. 

It was afternoon. On a marble loggia, south of as- 
pect, from which could be seen through soft blue mist, 
the fairy cupolas and towers of Florence, tea was being 
served to an elegant company. Dissemble the lower 


(2 PERELLA 


parts of ladies in sweeping trains, accentuate those of 
men by parti-coloured trunk-hose, substitute cool silver 
flagons for china tea-cups, and there might have been 
seated Pamfilo and Filostrato and Dioneo and Pam- 
pinea and Filomena and Elisa, the immortally delect- 
able idlers of the Decameron. 

The analogy was Anthony’s in talk with his hostess. 
The conceit pleased her, for she had gaiety and imagi- 
nation. She declared that she must inaugurate a series 
of symposia on Boccaccian lines, one story per sympo- 
sium. 

“But where,” bewailed Anthony, “are the exquisite 
amateur tellers of stories? All that—such is the mod- 
ern spirit of commercialism—has fallen into profes- 
sional hands—and the modern professional wouldn’t 
dream of giving out his stories except at his market rate 
of so much per thousand words.” 

‘What would you suggest then?” smiled the lady, 
for Anthony was one of the fortunate youths on whom 
ladies smiled instinctively. 

“‘A perfect communion of chosen souls, where speech 
would be forbidden. You would be much happier— 
wouldn’t you?—if, instead of being bored to death by 
me whom you’re so indulgent as to talk to, you could 
sit just there and look at the black cypresses against 
the blue sky, and the shimmering city, and know that 
beside you someone sympathetic was feeling exactly 
the same things and was saving you the worry of po- 
lite conversation.” 

“Tt sounds lovely,” she laughed, “but I’m afraid in 
modern Italy it wouldn’t work. The Fascisti would 
get to hear of it, and, as they couldn’t conceive such a 
party was not under the influence of drugs, they’d 
arrest us all for dreadful people trafficking in co- 
caine.” 


ANTHONY (3 


Anthony left behind him a favourable impression, 
and carried away, in a jubilant head, a commission to 
make a portrait of his hostess, in her setting on the 
loggia, as one of the Queens of the Decameron. 

A commission from Beatrice Ellison would have 
flattered any young and ambitious artist. Not only 
was she a beautiful woman, but also one of those aris- 
tocratic ladies to whom Americans, secretly hating 
their self-condemnation to Main Street democracy, 
point with pride and unquestioned justification as the 
finest product of modern civilization. With the ripe 
experience of the world which a woman has gathered 
by her early forties, she was at the height of her in- 
fluence and charm. Like most women of her class, 
she devoted certain pains to the preservation of her 
youth, whereby she remained young in health and 
looks and enjoyment of life. She reigned somewhat 
as a queen in Florence, holding a position in the so- 
cial world analogous to that of Silvester Gayton in the 
world of Art and Letters. ‘The two were friends; but 
when they met, it was generally in pleasant quietude. 

Anthony Blake made the most graceful little fin- 
ished sketch of Mrs. Ellison. The lady proclaimed 
her delight. Her court paid tribute to the artist. 
In her pose he had divined the irony of her languor 
and the truth of her authority. Without using colour 
he had, by some trick of legerdemain, conveyed the 
sense of the blueness of her eyes and the fresh pink of 
complexion beneath the mass of black hair. Anthony 
took rank, at once, among the illuminati who formed 
the nucleus, the Household, as it were, of the court 
of Beatrice Ellison. His position, within modest lim- 
its, was honourably lucrative. It was also one of 
great social value; for, by its virtue, exclusive doors 
were thrown open to him. He began, once more, to 


74 PERELLA 


move among the great and wealthy. He would apolo- 
gize now and then to Perella for apparent neglect. 

“Often I’m bored to tears, bird of my soul,” said he 
one day over lunch in the cellar restaurant; “but it’s 
the only way to establish my connection. People 
don’t come to a young man who lives on the top of 
an inaccessible mountain or at the bottom of a coal 
mine, begging him, for God’s sake, to paint their 
portraits. He must be there on the spot, in the midst 
of them, so that a fellow happening to catch sight of 
him says: ‘Hullo, that’s young Blake who did 
Jones’s wife so well. I wonder whether he’d do mine. 
By George! I'll ask him. And he asks, and young 
Blake puts on dog and condescends to take the order 
and sticks the money in the savings-bank against the 
day when he can carry off Perella for a honeymoon in 
a bungalow on the Thames. 'That’s how it’s done.” 

And Perella, dazzled by his magnificent prospects, 
agreed that nothing could be better done by the best 
of all possible lovers. 

‘‘You’re such a miracle,” said he. “So big in your 
tininess. You never reproach me for leaving you so 
much to yourself, and you scorn jealousy.” 

She replied, with one of her elfin smiles: “I’m too 
happy to be jealous. But sometimes I wonder.” 

“What?” 

‘““How you can leave princesses in palaces for Cin- 
derella in a kitchen.” 

“Cinderella’s going to have a Taj-Mahal palace of 
her very own, and wear nothing but diamond slippers.” 

A most comforting assurance. It made the cheap 
Chianti, which he poured into her glass from the vast, 
long-necked fiasco swinging in its cradle, glow with 
the fire of Love and Rubies consummating their 
union. 


ANTHONY 15 


Mrs. Ellison commissioned a second portrait—just 
a head and shoulders—a sketch for her daughter 
Emilia, a girl of eighteen who was taking a course of 
Theoretic Motherhood at a university in Minnesota. 

“This time make me respectable. The other was 
too Decameronian to send to a girl of a lamentably 
critical temperament.” 

One morning while she was sitting to him, there 
drove up Silvester Gayton, in his rattling old car. 
Invited to lunch, he had arrived early, so as to enjoy 
the coolness of the country air. He would not inter- 
rupt the sitting, said he, for worlds. He would walk 
the grounds. Anthony laughingly wiped the chalk 
from his hands. By no means; Mrs. Ellison was al- 
ready tired. He would come again, his time being 
always at her gracious disposal. But the lady had 
planned that the young artist should stay for lunch. 
Her word, both in and out of her own house, was law. 
She could sit for another half-hour, during which her 
dear Silvester could rest just there—she waved to a 
neighbouring seat—and when he was sick of the sight 
of his eternal Florence in the blue distance, he could 
occupy himself in watching a work of art in process 
of creation. 

Silvester put down his bowler hat and drew off his 
grey suéde gloves, and sat on his appoimted chair just 
behind the artist. 

“The old school and the new school—and—what am 
I? the m-between school. It’s rather interesting,” 
said the lady. 

“There’s only one school, dear Beatrice, don’t you 
think?” he said diffidently, “and that is the True school. 
I don’t see much difference in method between the 
sketches of the quattro-centisti and that of our friend 
heres. J." 


16 PERELLA 


Anthony flushed red, and turned quickly round. 

“IT know what you mean, sir. You’re not com- 
paring my work in value to the old people—it’s 
just the method. But that’s a tremendous compli- 
ment.” | 

“Well,” returned the Professor, rather pleased, “I 
did intend to be agreeable. It’s always nice to be that 
and truthful at the same time. All I meant was that 
you had the simple desire to draw a thing as you see 
it, and the gift of the free line in order to do it. So 
you belong to the one and only school, founded by the 
first primitive man who scratched the outline of a 
reindeer on the walls of his cave. You know,” he 
turned to Mrs. Ellison, “some of these cave drawings 
are tremendous works of art. The reindeer live.” 

Beatrice Ellison smiled. 

“According to you, that’s the only criterion—Life.” 

“Yes, my dear,” said the Professor, bending for- 
ward; “‘you can test everything by it. Even a Stilton 
cheese.” 

The drawing progressed. After a while, Anthony 
rose and stuck his drawing on his chair, and looked at 
it from a distance. 

“That’s all I can do for to-day. The time comes 
when one doesn’t know whether one sees too much or too 
little.” 

Mrs. Ellison murmured admiration of the likeness. 
Silvester Gayton peered at it through his thick lenses. 

“Quite good. Yes, quite good. But’—he bent a 
thumb—“if you’ll pardon my venturing to criticize, 
don’t you think that shadow on the cheek is a bit 
heavy? A question of values. A thing like this 
should give the impression of being done in an inspired 
instant. Nobody should be conscious of the agony 
and sweat that goes to it.” 


ANTHONY V7 


Anthony nodded, looking anxiously at his drawing. 
Mrs. Ellison laughed. 

“Professor Gayton’s nothing if not a Counsellor of 
Perfection.” 

Anthony flashed in his charming way. 

“Has there ever been a Teacher in this world who 
wasn’t?” 

Lunch-time approached. Ten minutes for washing 
of hands and powdering of noses, said the hostess. 
She disappeared. ‘The men went together into the 
house. 

“I’m very grateful to you for your kindness, sir,” 
said Anthony. 

After lunch Mrs. Ellison left them alone for a while. 
She knew her Silvester and what fruits a discreet whis- 
per in his ear would bear. This time Anthony had 
made a favourable impression. He had conducted 
himself with deference and humility—no longer the 
young man knowing most things and on the eve of 
knowing all that were left, who had at first driven the 
sensitive Professor far back into his shell. The com- 
pass needle, carefully set by Mrs. Ellison at the young 
man’s prospects, remained steady. 

“Your work is quite good and interesting,” said 
Silvester Gayton, after preliminary talk. “But have 
you thought what it will lead to? You can’t go on 
making crayon portraits all your life-time.” 

Anthony supposed he couldn’t. But what would 
the Professor suggest? 

“The obvious career for a portraitist is that of a 
painter.” 

“T wish to goodness I could paint,” cried Anthony. 
“But when I get a brush in my hands, it’s such a 
clumsy thing that I can only make a beastly mess. 
Of course, I know that if I went into a studio in Paris, 


78 PERELLA 


say, and threw my heart into painting, I’d get the hang 
of it. It’s really a matter of technique. Pencil or 
brush—after all—well But I can’t afford a 
couple of unprofitable years. Here I am beginning to 
make a lot of money in a modest way.” 

“Quite so—quite so. But soon you'll exhaust your 
public—numerically, I mean, of course. And then?” 

That was the devil of it. The thought had worried 
Anthony exceedingly every night for five minutes be- 
fore he went to sleep, and for five minutes between 
awakening and jumping impatiently out of bed. 

The wise professor counselled the two years’ sacri- 
fice in Paris. Anthony urged the possibility of fame 
and fortune from black and white. 

“Pardon me, my dear Mr. Blake,” said Gayton, 
“but why do you clamour for fame and fortune so 
soon? Believe me, there’s the greatest joy in waiting, 
if faith and hope are strong enough.” 

Anthony gave meek assent. He realized somewhat 
ruefully, as many millions of men have done, that the 
best advice in the world has been given on insufficient 
data, and therefore, logically, is valueless. Now, if 
he had told him about Perella! But he couldn’t bring 
in Perella, even though he knew that Gayton, depart- 
ing from instinctive habit, had taken Perella under 
his special protection. A new and incomprehensible 
shyness inhibited reference to Perella. The timid 





little great man imposed himself on the habitual ir- 


reverence of his youth. He feared reproach, how- 
ever delicately veiled, for penniless impudence. He 
took it for granted that Gayton saw Perella, through 
his eyes, as a thing of elfin flame, not to be desecrated 
by vulgar breath. 

As they rose from table the Professor said: 

“T hope you don’t mind my prying into your private 


ANTHONY 19 


affairs in this way, but—there’s my good friend, Halli- 
day Armstrong, originally, and now our dear hostess 
—I knew her husband, poor chap—much older than 
her, you know. . . . He was the greatest living au- 
thority on Italian stained glass, and that’s how I came 
to know him. Well—I’m afraid I’m getting mixed 
up. What I wanted to say was that two friends, 
Armstrong and Mrs. Ellison, have been responsible 
for my indiscretion—to say nothing of my opinion of 
the work of yours that I’ve seen.” 

Said Anthony, responsive to the elder man’s cour- 
tesy: “I’m only too fortunate in having you take any 
notice of me at all.” 

They joined Mrs. Ellison in the loggia, when coffee 
and liqueurs were served. 

“Has he given you sound advice?” she asked An- 
thony. 

“The wisest and the kindest,” replied the young 
man with a bow. 

A while afterwards she offered the artist another 
hour’s sitting. Silvester Gayton took his leave, one 
glove on and the other off, in the old-fashioned way, 
and his jacket closely buttoned. 

“You've won his heart; I’m so glad,” said Mrs. Elli- 
son. “It’s a heart of gold, but it takes some winning.” 

He started to draw, but presently threw down his 
crayon. The light was wrong. There were all sorts 
of shadows and conflicting tones. She must change 
the sitting to some room with a quiet, north light. 
She avowed herself too lazy to move. He could come, 
if he liked, to-morrow morning. Meanwhile, the 
drowsy afternoon lent itself to comfortable talk. 

She lay back in a cane chair, slim and graceful, and 
drew a cigarette from her case. He bent over her. 
with a lighted match. A little earnest pucker of her 


80 PERELLA 


brows relaxed, and she looked up at him with a nod 
and a charming smile of thanks. Perhaps, for the 
first time, he looked upon her with a non-professional 
eye, and realized her as a very beautiful woman. 

“TI want to know more about you,” she said. “I 
don’t mean your pedigree, or even your past, however 
interestingly dreadful it may be—but your present 
and your ideas for the future. Does it bore you to 
talk about yourself?” 

He made the obvious modest reply. She laughed. 

“Tf I were doing penance for my sins, the last mor- 
tification I should dread would be boredom.” She 
gave him a lead. “What has my good Silvester to 
say?” 

They sat in the colonnaded marble loggia, a slant 
of sunshine across the far end, but they in secure cool 
shade. It was the blue and golden afternoon of early 
Italian summer. Away below dreamed the domes and 
towers of the city, man’s immortal handiwork con- 
secrated by the smile of God. On the loggia, every- 
thing seemed far away and delicate. A touch of the 
scent of magnolia was in the air, but the tree was not 
near enough to drench the senses. Far off too, a 
cicada made dainty music to his mate. A cowbell on 
the mountain above tinkled just perceptibly in the 
still air. From far away at the back of the house 
came now and then the notes of a man-servant singing, 
as every Italian must when he is finding joy in his 
work. All the horns of Elfland were faintly blowing. 
The young man living, who, invited in such conditions 
by a beautiful lady, near and yet remote, to make the 
very most and best of himself, does not respond, is a 
young man with no music in his soul, and, as the poet 
tells us, is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils, and 
must not be trusted even to watch the tin can of a blind 


ANTHONY 81 


man’s dog. As a tulip unfolds its heart to the sun, 
so did Anthony unfold his life to the Lady. .. . 

She listened intently, throwing in, here and there, a 
soft and humorous word. She had the great gift of 
making men—and women too—feel that, to her, they 
were the most important factors of the universe. Un- 
consciously he surrendered to her enchantment. Lit- 
tle Perella seemed far away, mingled somehow with the 
shimmer of temples, and the elusive perfumes of flow- 
ers and the far-flung music of fairy bells away up on 
the side of the scented mountain. 

Loyalty strove to wrest her from the ambient fairy- 
land and set her there on the loggia, warm and human, 
before the lady. But a curious fear froze loyalty into 
an inactive block; the intuitive fear of the man, ig- 
norant of being born to the love of many women, yet 
sensitive to their touch. Instinctively he knew that 
the hour was golden because the woman lazily holding 
him with her dark blue—here and there in shadow al- 
most violet—eyes, had willed its transmutation into 
gold. . . . She had lured him from the commonplace 
into talk of beauty and emotion and God knows what. 
He spoke, and she wove grace around his utterances. 
For the first time in his clean and careless life, he 
found himself under the spell of woman. Perella, an 
alien elf, would have broken a spell too sensuous to 
be broken. 

The butler came in with a jingle of silver and china 
on atray. Beatrice Ellison rose from her long chair. 

“T am dying for tea.” 

She busied herself with the dainty ceremony of the 
futile meal. The talk fell to common earth. At last, 
however, she said with a sigh: 

“JT suppose one of these days you, like the rest 
of you, will be mad to marry some flibbertigibbet of 


82 PERELLA 


a modern girl, and you’ll wave your hand to all your 
friends—Bon soir la compagnie—and off you'll go. 
But if you’re a wise man, you’ll realize you’ve still half 
a dozen years of sense in front of you. Have a cu- 
cumber sandwich?” 

How could young man say: “Madam, I will not 
have a cucumber sandwich, because I have already the 
girl of my heart?” 

He laughed, in a silly sort of way, and accepted the 
sandwich. 


CHAPTER VI 


Tuat glowing afternoon set the date in Anthony’s 
life of a new set of influences; for, a few minutes after 
his Edenic eating of the cucumber sandwich, there 
drove up Cornelius Adams to tell and hear of plans 
for the approaching exodus from Florence. Mrs. 
Ellison put before her new guest the problem of the 
young man’s career. Anthony was flattered by hear- 
ing himself discussed, not only as a personage of im- 
portance, but as a joint possession for whom these two 
kind friends were responsible. 

Cornelius Adams drove him to Florence, saving him 
from the dusty return by the inconvenient vehicles 
of democracy. Anthony was one of those easy phi- 
losophers who accept discomfort with a tolerant smile, 
but luxury with whole-hearted delight. A good cigar 
between his lips, he lay back on the cushions, the King 
of ‘Tuscany. 

His host summed up the late discussion. ‘The 
three of us—Professor Gayton, Mrs. Ellison and my- 
self—are agreed upon one thing. You’re wasting 
your time here. The professor thinks you ought to 
paint. Mrs. Ellison thinks you ought to do some- 
thing, I don’t quite know what. I think you’ve got 
a special gift which you can use, for some years at 
any rate, to your great advantage. You want a field. 
I’m an American, and so, of course, I say New York. 
I know a hundred people there; Mrs. Ellison a thou- 
sand. 'There’s your chance.” ; 

A dazed young man sat by Perella’s side that eve- 


ning at the Pension Toselli dinner. They had been 
83 


84 PERELLA 


promoted to nearly the top of the long table. In 
fact, they sat next to the younger Miss Brabazon, on 
Madame Toselli’s left, their opposite neighbours be- 
ing the Grewsons, who flanked the elder Miss Brabazon 
on Madame Toselli’s right. Vague people in whom 
they took no interest filled the lower seats. Theirs, 
of course, was the honour of seniority, but the intimate 
talk of obscure position was a thing of the past. An- 
thony listened during most of the meal to an intri- 
cate tale concerning an ancestral Brabazon, belonging 
to the British Embassy in Paris, who arranged the 
Entente Cordiale between Monsieur Guizot and Lord 
Aberdeen when Sir Robert Peel formed his ministry 
in 1841. Ancestor Brabazon shone as Monsieur 
Guizot’s guiding star, and lit the stormy way to peace 
between the two countries when Lord Palmerston re- 
turned to office in 1846. 

“My great-grandfather, in his day, was considered 
the handsomest man in Europe. And the wittiest. 
He was an intimate friend of the Empress Eugénie. 
She said. to him one day when, as the French say, he 
had been engaged in conter fleurette to Her Majesty: 
‘Ah, Monsieur Brabazon, if only I had been born 
twenty years earlier, who knows whether the History 
of Europe might not have been changed.’ And he 
replied with a sigh. ‘Ah, Madame, who can foretell 
the past?? I call that pure wit, don’t you?” 

“Attic, my dear lady, merum sal,” said Anthony. 

The Rev. Mr. Grewson leaned across the table, a 
facetious cleric. “I’m thinking of writing an article 
for the Quarterly Review entitled: ‘The Future: 
A Retrospect.’ ” 

The elder Miss Brabazon by his side, who had not 
been listening to her sister’s favourite tale, turned to 
him: 


ANTHONY 85 


“But surely, Mr. Grewson, that’s a contradiction in 
terms !” 

“Yes, dear Miss Brabazon,” he replied, “but what 
a delicious contradiction.” 

Anthony wiped a moist brow—the air of the room, 
tight-shuttered against mosquitoes, was heavy—and 
whispered to Perella: 

***T die, I faint, I fail,’ he quoted. “How can we 
get out of this dreadful place?” 

As very often happened, a friendly cinema sheltered 
them later from the intellectual debauchery of the 
Pension Toselli. They had acquired the habit of dis- 
regarding the forlorn entertainment provided, and us- 
ing the place as a private sitting-room. The worse 
the film and the emptier the house—their choice had 
become expert—the more did they find themselves at 
home. On this evening Anthony put before Perella 
the brand-new suggestion of his bid for fortune in 
America. 

She listened with a smile in her eyes and a queer 
little droop of the corner of her lips. America seemed 
desperately far away. 

““You see, my dear,” said he; “old man Gayton’s 
perfectly right. There’s the future to look to. I 
can’t carry on at this game all my life, and I don’t 
see any great point in becoming a hack black-and- 
white man. It isn’t as if I were a comic chap, and 
would do humorous stuff—which pays, of course; 
but think of the dreadful strain of it, being funny 
every day, year in and year out, until one’s last breath, 
and then having people hanging around expecting 
you to breathe the last joke. No, that’s not my line. 
Frankly, am I funny?” 

“Only unconsciously,” said Perella. 

“That wipes out a means of livelihood, doesn’t it?” 


86 PERELLA 


She agreed. But she was not convinced that the 
career of a black-and-white artist, a successful maga- 
zine illustrator, for instance, was one to be despised. 

“But I want money, my dear. Lots of money. 
Bankfuls of money,” he declared. 

“But is money so very important?” she ventured. 

“How can I give you your crystal castle with a 
golden throne in Rainbow Land without money?” 

Craving none of these monstrosities, Perella sighed. © 

“IY should be more than happy in our little bunga- 
low.” 

“With a neat little maid in white cap and apron. 
And you and I going about like those comic people we 
met at the Pension when we first came—the Oscar 
Merrydevils.” 

She laughed. ‘Basil Merrywethers.” 

“KE tutti quanti’”—he waved a hand. “Can you 
imagine me with a beastly collar over my coat, ham- 
mering up hen-pens and bee-sheds and pruning potato 
trees in our dear little patch of garden? Or driving 
you in our own little petrol can to the nearest village to 
buy scrag of mutton and tinned lobster and Bird’s 
custard powder? No, no, my fairy princess. Bun- 
galows are off. If you yearn for the river, and until 
I can decree you a Kublai Khan’s stately pleasure 
dome, let us think in terms of a dignified early Geor- 
gian house standing in its own grounds. Let us think, 
temporarily, in terms of terraces and peacocks.” 

Perella laughed again. “I’m all for peacocks.” 

“And the decoration of life. ‘Life is real and life 
is earnest’—but so is the drivelling existence of the 
inhumourous ant or the other survivors of my family 
burrowing somewhere in the unclean subterranean 
passages of the City of London. But life is meaning- 
less without colour and decoration. Peacocks are 


ANTHONY 87 


just what we want. Do you know—we talk about a 
herd of cattle, a flock of sheep, a flight of wild duck, a 
covey of partridges, but—listen—isn’t it decorative? 
—a muster of peacocks. We’ll have a muster.” 

“It7ll cost a lot of money,” said Perella. 

“That’s the whole point. Money. Merely the 
means to decorate life. If I decided to go to America 
to buy you peacocks, what would you say?” 

She said nothing, fearful lest she should appear un- 
gracious. Her shoulder rubbed his in the semi- 
darkness. Her right hand lay in his warm and com- 
forting clasp, and with the thumb of her left she 
fiddled with the cameo ring which was the symbol of 
their troth. The surrender of her bungalow caused her 
a pang, that of a fibre suddenly severed; but she strove 
loyally to readjust her sum of values to the Georgian 
mansion. After all, he had passed his life among mus- 
ters of peacocks, and not, like herself, among sooty 
sparrows chirruping around the windows of back bed- 
rooms. But could she live up to the peacocks? Also, 
the period between the Pension Toselli and the Geor- 
gian terrace loomed a yawning gulf, indefinite, envel- 
oped in black and intimidating fog. If the gulf were 
to be crossed, hand in hand as they were now, she would 
be as bold as a lion, fearing no evil; indeed, a fine 
streak of instinct at the back of her mind suggested her 
possible leadership over here and there a dangerous 
pass where they must walk gropingly. 

But the more he talked in his young magniloquence, 
the less significant of atoms did she feel. Why he 
loved her, why he desired to enthrone her among rain- 
bow peacocks and diamonds she could not imagine. 
She would be content with so little, having so much. 
She sat unutterably happy, poignantly hurt, entirely 
baffled. Of all his ambitions she was the end. He 


88 PERELLA 


made that flattermgly clear. Yet, after all, was it so 
flattering? She preferred herself, preferred his con- 
ception of her, as the little Perella of no account, to 
his imaginary apotheosis of an impossible Perella in 
impossible glory. Anyhow, and after all, she was 
flattered by the proclaimed end of his ambition. But 
the means to the end? ‘That was where her modest 
little soul felt the hurt. She counted for nothing. 
As far as she could gather from his picturesque dis- 
course, she would be left at the Pension Toselli, wait- 
ing until such time as he, having made sufficient money 
in America by drawing millionairess beauty from 
New York to Hollywood, should study portrait paint- 
ing seriously for a year or two, and then, having made 
his fortune as a great portrait painter, should stand 
on the terrace of the Georgian Mansion and beckon to 
her to come across the gulf. He gave her the impres- 
sion that, at a breathlessly awaited moment, he would 
send for her—dispatch a messenger on wires for her, 
somewhat after the fashion of the dove in the Scoppio 
del Carro. The mixed figure confused her. She 
strove to clear her mind of images and get to the solid 
and undecorated fact. Anthony proposed to go away 
for two years, for the advantage of them both. ‘Two 
years. The attuning of her mind to such an infinite 
chord of time made her head reel. After all, what 
could she say? 

Meanwhile Anthony continued his parable, uncon- 
scious, after the way of men, of the commentaries and ~ 
glosses and conjectural readings that occupied the 
soul of Perella. She said little or nothmg. He 
took for granted her acquiescence. It was only on 
their walk home under the June stars that he became 
aware of unusual silence, and now and then a little 
convulsive, almost reflex pressure on his arm. 


ANTHONY 89 


“You haven’t yet told me what you think of the 
idea,” he said. “And, of course, it’s only an idea. 
If you don’t want me to go, wild Crcoesuses wouldn’t 
drag me.” 

Thus challenged, her conscience smote her. She 
had been sadly lacking in loyal sympathy. She 
clutched his arm. 

“Dear. Dear Anthony. Don’t you know that 
whatever you do must be right? How can I begin to 
advise you on these big things?” 

He slipped his arm round her and said tenderly: 
“You see, Perella mia, life isn’t all moonlight and the 
glimmer of stars. I wish to God it were. For that’s 
where you belong.” 

She protested. She was but a dull little moth flut- 
tering round the candle of happiness. <A farthing 
rushlight, if such there were in these expensively 
illuminated times, would suffice her heart’s desire. He 
countered with the query whether the world had ever 
seen elf poised on lighter wings of fancy. 

On the dim and smelly landing of the Pension 
Toselli he kissed her good night, very much in love. 


It was the beginning of July. Florence broiled 
under a freak of summer heat. The scirocco crept up 
soft and enervating over the plains. The city gasped 
for breath. The thin leaves of Baedekers in the hands 
of post-war German tourists stuck clammily  to- 
gether. Even the cold white David under the dome of 
the Accadémia de Belle Arte (so said Anthony) stood 
limp, in pathetic request of the loan of a pocket hand- 
kerchief. All the reds in the gallery where Perella 
worked glowed hot and hurt the eyes. The brush 
slipped between her moist fingers. She abandoned the 
impossible task. The Pension Toselli smelled of 


90 PERELLA 


every meal and of every human who had eaten it since 
its walls had shut out the breath of heaven. You 
could pick up the nerveless flies in the dining-room be- 
tween finger and thumb. 

Perella, having left the Gallery, lay all but un- 
clothed on her bed in her furnace of a room. She 
took the sirocco philosophically, as she had been 
trained to take most of the phenomena of existence. 
It was part of the day’s work. It would be over soon, 
and there might be rain or honest sunshine, scorching 
but pleasant. That a sentient human being should 
lie damp and gasping, like a trout landed on a hot 
bank, suggested a picture of the humorous. It was 
also a new experience for the Northern born. This, 
said she to herself, was the famous scirocco; as a hardy 
and curious voyager might say: “This is the much 
talked-of typhoon, or the fabulous floundering in the 
sea, after collision with an iceberg.” 

She was tiny, delicately made and exceedingly 
healthy. She consoled herself with the thought that, 
were she twice her size, she would be twice as uncomfort- 
able. At lunch the buxom Madame Toselli had been a 
piteous spectacle. But Perella lay on her back, arms 
beneath her head, and crinkled her bare, moist toes, 
and laughed—perhaps the only happy animal in Flor- 
ence on that sulphurous day. 

For one thing, she had no reason to drift elsewhere 
for an indefinite period. Autumn commissions would 
be sure to come. And Anthony had promised to stay 
until he set sail for the conquest of the Western world. 
That dreadful day would be somewhere about the end 
of September. She shut her mind to the contemplation 
of it, as most of us shut our minds to that of the Day of 
Judgment. For two months, at any rate, she would 
have him all to herself. They would explore Tuscany 


ANTHONY 91 


in third-class railway carriages and trams and funny, 
ramshackle omnibuses, and rub up against the peas- 
ants smelling lustily of garlic and wine and babies, and 
eat at quaint vine-trellised Trattorie far away from 
the dust of vulgarly splendid automobiles. And she 
would be interpreter, her lessons with the Signorina 
Demonetti having borne their fruit. For the language 
had come to her almost in a gush, swifter than she could 
realize. After all, it was her mother’s tongue, and her 
father had told her that she had lisped its soft vocables 
in her babyhood. But Anthony, splendid, brilliant 
Anthony, was master of only a few scattered words 
which he pieced together, as one doing a puzzle, into 
stiff and often unintelligible sentences. She felt the 
delicious thrill of superiority. She, the dust beneath 
his chariot wheels, could rise up like a pillar of cloud 
—if you can’t muddle up metaphors when you’re 
young, when can you do it?—and guide him on his 
way. And then there were the towns they would get to 
somehow—Siena, Perugia, Urbino, Pisa. . . . They 
had already visited Siena one Sunday, a day of de- 
lights, but the museums were shut. She must show 
him the Ducios beloved of Silvester Gayton in the 
Accadémia. ... | 

She would have him all to herself. In a few days his 
rich and influential friends would have gone far away. 
She had no envies or jealousies. Their companionship 
was his right, accorded to him by birth and by the 
Eternal Stars. But all the same, her heart sang the 
song of their dismissal. He, too, must be bored to 
death. Even to-day in this sweltering, breathless heat, 
he had been summoned to bid farewell to his patroness, 


Mrs. Ellison. Poor Anthony! 


Poor Anthony, fetched from the Pension Toselli by a 


92 PERELLA 


motor-car which lacked in luxury only fans beating iced 
air around him, was lounging at that moment in a long 
cane chair on the northern verandah of Mrs. Ellison’s 
villa. At her invitation he had cast off his coat and 
sat in grey flannels and a silk shirt. Beatrice Ellison, 
in the coolest of thin, pink frocks, lay near by on an- 
other long cane chair. A table held glasses and cool 
beverages, and a great crystal pail in which the ice 
melted gradually with the tiny crack of fairy ava- 
lanches. The shade was absolute, but the sultry breath 
of the scirocco stole round the corner of the verandah 
and deadened nerve and will and even desire. 

There had been a long silence. Even Italian poli- 
ticians talk less than usual in time of scirocco. Bea- 
trice Ellison looked idly and langourously on the young 
man—and in his strength and his frankness and his 
English cleanness he was good for a woman to look 
upon. 

At last she spoke. 

“What's the difficulty?” 

The difficulty happened to be Perella, whom he had 
vaguely and lightly assured of his companionship in 
Florence during these summer months. He mopped his 
forehead on which fresh perspiration gathered. It was 
far too hot for delicate explanation. Beatrice added: 

“You can’t stay here all the time.” 

“TI suppose not,” he said lamely. 

“Then why not do as I ask you and come to Dinard?” 

The argument was the result of a proposal hinted for 
some time by his hostess and at last, on this day, the eve 
of her departure from Florence, set into definite shape. 
To a young man of no fortune, but with every incentive 
in the world to make one, it was alluring. Why should 
he not spend the remainder of July and the month of 
August at her villa in Dinard, which was on his way to 


ANTHONY 93 


England whither he must go to arrange petty affairs 
before starting on his American adventure? As far as 
the Proprieties were concerned, she laughed; one stray 
man, more or less, in her houseful of guests would pass 
technically unnoticed. He must not imagine that she 
was inviting him to the idyll of a solitude & deux in 
gilded but guilty splendour. Besides, she was old 
enough to be his mother—which, physically, was not 
quite exact, as the young man, proclaiming his mature 
years, indignantly declared. The Villa Mignon she 
described as a rambling castle German-built and 
German-owned before the war; since sequestrated by 
the French Government, and sold to her for a song. | 
She found it difficult so to people it with inhabitants 
as to make a show—like a stage army. She could offer 
him a little wing: bedroom, bathroom, studio, where he 
could work from morning to night. He gathered from 
her talk that she reigned in Dinard with greater author- 
ity even than in Florence. Her ukase having gone 
forth, he could carry on his late lucrative profession in 
the certainty of fortune. At her word Casinos and 
great hotels would open their vestibules to exhibitions 
of his drawings, and would provide myrmidons to take 
orders and made appointments. In view of New York 
expenses, the extra money earned in this way was not 
to be disdained. 

Beatrice Ellison, herself the daughter of an old fam- 
ily of modest means, looked at things from a sound and 
practical point of view. On occasion she had already 
rated him for extravagance. Why, for instance, waste 
money on English brands of Turkish cigarettes, when 
the Italian Regie Dubecs were quite as good and many 
times cheaper? Since their first meeting she had es- 
tablished a pretty and quasi-maternal hold on the 

young man. She regarded him as a discovery, per- 


94 PERELLA 


haps also as a possession. At first, he was a bright 
thing to have about the house: his charm and gaiety 
decorated her luncheon table. Her pride in him grew 
with the encomiums of her friends. She began to feel 
responsible for most aspects of his welfare; especially 
of late, since she had become a party to the American 
scheme. Then she perceived that his delightfulness 
rested on an instability of character which, if left to it- 
self, might crumble one day into ruin. He needed sup- 
port. oi 

Woman, with the best, sweetest, cleanest, most al- 
truistic intentions, is responsible for many a human 
tragedy. If she would only let the stray man go to hell 
in his own way, all would be well. But she won’t. She 
wrecks her nerves in trying to make him go to heaven 
in her way. And he can’t. Even when he wants to, 
which is not very often. In many cases they find them- 
selves in a purgatory uncontemplated by either of them, 
whence they have the devil to pay to get them out. 

Beatrice Ellison felt herself called on by destiny to 
underpin, shore up and make generally secure, the ex- 
istence of the young man, Anthony Blake, and, like 
every generous-hearted woman with the pulses of youth 
still throbbing, failed to interpret the call as a sum- 
mons to disaster. What could be more reasonable, 
more protective, more impeccable, than her plan for 
the young man’s summer? It shone in the beauty of 
perfection. And yet he hum’d and ha’d, of course 
with perfect politeness, until she had to ask him what 
was his difficulty. 

‘““Why not come to Dinard?” she asked. She added 
banteringly: “One would say you were afraid of 
trusting yourself with me.” 

Anthony smiled. ‘Now you really have my secret!” 

What less could common courtesy suggest to gallant 


ANTHONY 95 


youth? But a bright glance, in which she read sincere 
tribute to her beauty, brought a flush to her cheek. 
She laughed. 7 

“T’m glad to hear it. It betrays a modesty rare in 

these post-war times—a different attitude from that of 
the ordinary modern young man. ‘Poor little girl, 
poor lady, poor dear old thing . . . if she will bump 
into me and burn her wings, I’m awfully sorry, but it’s 
her funeral, not mine.” That’s the way of it nowadays, 
isn’t it?” 
_ Anthony defended his generation, a shy and penni- 
less brood. Naturally—since, in the Beginning, male 
and female created He them—there were attractions 
and actions and reactions and interactions between 
the sexes, which always had been and always would be 
world without end, for ever and ever, amen. But when 
his congeners knew that the only girl in the world, 
clasped to their bosom and asked to marry them, would 
respond with protestations of readiness for every sac- 
rifice, but would murmur between burning kisses that 
she must have at least a thousand a year to keep her 
hair shingled—what were the poor devils to do? Un- 
less the girl could pay for her own shingling they 
couldn’t afford to marry her. Whereupon she mar- 
ried some opulent elderly beast who sweated pear! neck- 
laces, or threw herself away on a He-Cave-Man who, by 
way of learning her to be expensive, shingled her hair 
with his teeth. 

Thus were modest Anthony and Company branded 
with the mark of the ineligible, and socially used as male 
mechanical toys, dancers, diners, hewers of wood and 
drawers of mineral water, cavaliere servente, and serv- 
anting often under humiliating conditions. If now and 
then they raised the banner of revolt, asserted their in- 
dependence, who could blame them? ‘Their misinter- 


96 PERELLA 


preted attitude was only that of the turning of the 
worm. 

“Further exposition in time of scirocco, dear Lady 
Beatrice, is not to be demanded, I know, by your gen- 
tlest of natures.” 

She lit a cigarette. He noticed that the blue spirals 
of smoke struck a note of relief against the coppery sky. 
Her hand, holding it, standing out in relief, was white, 
graceful and pleasantly dimpled. 

“All you’ve been saying,” she remarked, “is most 
agreeable, but it hasn’t anything to do with Dinard.” 
She paused for a moment or two. “You must come, 
Anthony. I want you there, whether you’re afraid of 
me or not. Besides, I’m not accustomed to being 
turned down.” 

He gasped, threw out his hands in a gesture of 
horror. Turned down! She suggested the unthink- 
able. She shrugged adorable shoulders. 

“Quit m’aime me suive,” she said. 

It was an ultimatum. Nothing between taking or 
leaving her powerful patronage. The heat rendered 
him too nerveless to resist. He yielded. 


He drove back to Florence in the comparative cool of 
the evening, a young man seeking to calm an uneasy 
conscience. Of course, it would have been more de- 
lightful to wander over Tuscany with his Perella. But 
in this uncompromising world idyllic fancies must give 
place to stern realities. His career meant everything 
to them both. The sooner he made an assured income, 
the sooner could they marry. This was a proposition 
to which her sound common-sense would immediately 
assent. Besides, the summer journeyings had been 
planned in the same half-playful and unreal way as the 
bungalow on the Thames. He had not definitely 


ANTHONY 97 


bound himself. It was a project to be executed if noth- 
ing else came along; that was tacitly understood. She 
herself had said: ‘Supposing I suddenly had an order 
to copy the Ansidei Madonna in the National Gallery, I 
should have to run away and leave you on top of the 
Monte Morello.” That settled it. 

He would stay a month—five weeks at the outside— 
say August with its thirty-one days, in Dinard, and 
rush back to Florence to spend the remaining time in 
Europe with Perella. Better still, why should she not 
come north—a change of air would be good for her 
health—and join him in Paris and go with him on a 
Belgian tour—Brussels, Bruges, Antwerp—to see pic- 
tures and cathedrals and the things they loved? 

The stagnant air of the Pension Toselli choked him 
as he mounted the stairs lit with the dimmest of light. 
He shuddered in his nice disgust. He must get out of 
this sort of horror as quickly as possible. All the in- 
mates had gone to bed. The silence of the house was 
as heavy as its smell. Habit guided him, match in 
hand, to the letter frame in the corrider. Under the 
fly-blown cardboard letter “B,” he found a telegram. 
He read it in his room: 


“Duchesse Montfaucon daughter John D. Blaydes Chicago 
agrees portrait. Will be Dinard mid August. Great chance. 
Consult our gracious lady of Fiesole. Adams.” 


Well. This was Fate. Sheer Destiny. Perella so 
shown the telegram, would not dream of flying in the 
face of it. ‘The Duchesse de Montfaucon—Peggy 
Blaydes, the most brilliant woman in Europe, who had 
brought a colossal fortune to the rehabilitation of one of 
the proudest titles of France—of course he had heard of 
her from Mrs. Ellison. They had been girls together. 
A replica, or even photograph of a portrait in his port- 


98 PERELLA 


folio, would carry him professionally through the 
wealthiest boudoirs of America from New York to the 
Pacific coast. Recognition of social values had been 
part of his life’s training. 

He sat on his stuffy bed, nearly tearing down the 
dingy mosquito curtains, and read the message over and 
over again. 

Naturally the order was the result of a conspiracy 
between Beatrice and Cornelius Adams. He blessed 
them for perfect dears. 'To meet with rebuff their dis- 
interested kindness were the act of an ungracious hog or 
a tortured genius. And he was neither. Now that he 
came to think of it, he had divined something definite 
beneath his patroness’s vague assurances of fortune. 
This commission was the kernel of her plans. But un- 
til she had received the report of Adams, her emissary, 
she had been bound to silence. 

Was ever youth more fortunate? He abased himself 
in contemplation of the great and splendid goodness 
of human beings. 

Perella would understand. Of course she would. 
That was one of her subtle beauties—her instant, deli- 
cate comprehension. 

He undressed and went to bed. Half through the 
suffocating night he thought of Perella. Now, indeed, 
his compensating scheme grew easily practical. His 
dear conspirators would see to it that his Dinard prices 
would far exceed the modest bread and butter earnings 
of Florence. He would have money to burn. He 
would burn it by paying all Perella’s expenses—wagon- 
lit to Paris, where she should join him. After that, the 
spending of a penny of her own was an idea too pre- 
posterous for thought. 

Qualms arose within the clean-run Englishman with 
his inbred Puritanic delicacy so hopelessly unintelligible 


ANTHONY 99 


to the Latin races. That she would accompany him he 
had no manner of doubt. The unconventional world 
of her upbringing—she had made him familiar with 
John Annaway and his friends and his doings—would 
look upon the jaunt as an everyday matter of no im- 
portance. But that was not his world, not the world 
into which, when fortune was made, he would bring her. 
As frank companions, all the Anglo-American tourists 
of Belgium would look askance at them—particularly 
at Perella. To travel as brother and sister offended 
his sense of integrity. 

There was only one suddenly conceived, amazingly 
simple and exciting solution to the problem. Why 
should he not marry Perella out of hand? ‘The Bel- 
gian trip would then be a honeymoon of all the rap- 
tures. The bond of marriage would inspire him with 
supernatural powers of work during their separation. 
Money would flow into eager coffers. 

He got out of bed and walked about the breathless 
room, moist and sanguine. Why should he go to 
America at all? Having married Perella, how could 
he leave her? MHundreds of artists in Europe made an 
honourable and decent living, without dabbling in 
paint. . . . He went to the open window and looked out 
on to the black, sulphurous night. Half an hour 
passed. Thirst assailed him. His water bottle af- 
forded him a lukewarm draught. Mosquitoes played 
around wrists and ankles. He felt a sudden desire for 
sleep, worn out by this emotional creation of his destiny. 
He went back to bed and slept like a log. 

He awoke at about half-past ten, feeling sluggish 
and unrefreshed. There was no polite calling of guests 
and entering of bedroom and pulling back of curtains 
and suchlike amenities of life at the Pension Toselli. 
The weary nondescript Giuseppe, who cleaned boots 


100 PERELLA 


and windows (generally it was half a pair and half a 
window), manhandled luggage, ran on errands, washed 
plates and dishes, maintained a miraculous growth of 
a two days’ beard without ever having been known to 
shave, never left the Pension day or night, and yet 
managed to lead a presumably satisfactory domestic 
life, in that a Signora Giuseppe, living in Bergamo, 
added a reputably born citizen a year to the population 
of Italy, slept among the cinders of the basement 
central-heating furnace, on days of high pressure 
helped to wait at table, unofficially washed silk stock- 
ings and other intimate garments for the reward of a 
smile, minded trunks, soothed refractory locks with oil 
and irresistible murmur of blasphemy—Giuseppe 
whom, for some queer reason of his own, no bribe could 
induce to call a guest, except on leaving by a very early 
train, went through the corridors every morning three- 
quarters of an hour before the first breakfast was 
served in the dining-room, beating a cracked gong of 
a shrill and soul-affrighting dissonance. Deep was the 
slumber that remained indifferent to its clangour. Yet 
such was the profound sleep that morning of Anthony 
Blake. 

At a little past eleven he descended, resentful of 
headache and dry mouth. A young man of spirit, he 
was not unfamiliar with such aftermath of dissipation, 
and accepted it with the debonair grace of one who 
scorns to question the reckoning. But, in the present 
instance, there had been no dissipation whatever. No 
soberer being in Europe had laid head on overnight 
pillow. He was the most ill-used inhabitant of this 
fly- and scirocco-blown world. And not even a cup of 
coffee for a man conscious of rectitude. Idly he put his 
head through the salon door. <A female writing letters 
by the window table turned round and glared at him 


ANTHONY 101 


through fishy eyes set over a thin red nose. God! why 
did Dante fool about with tepid Purgatories and In- 
fernos when there was this hell of a world to his hand! 

Giuseppe, chance met on the stairs, told him that the 
Signorina Annaway had gone out as usual. Her cool 
disregard of one who had spent a nightmare of a night 
thinking of her, added to his sense of grievance. She 
was always cool—inhumanly cool. There she was sit- 
ting primly at her easel before a blazing-hot picture, 
in an atmosphere of a Turkish Bath in Hades, working 
away as though God was in His Heaven and all was 
right with the world. ‘The snail’s on the thorn.” 
Silly ass of a snail to sit on a thorn! He had no use 
for poets. He went out on to the sweltering quay. A 
tented cab drawn by a heat-atrophied horse took him to 
the Piazza di Vittorio Emanuele, where he breakfasted 
on wretched coffee and a sweet biscuit. Another tired 
horse took him to the Pitti where Perella was painting. 
Only horses and Perellas could walk in this airless heat. 
Reckless, he told the cabman to wait. He found her in 
her place, careworn, white, damp, untidy. Everything 
around her was in a mess. Her canvas was in a mess, 
her palette, her box of tubes. Her hair stuck to her 
forehead. She had a streak of green paint across her 
cheek. ‘There seemed to be nothing of Perella but a 
pair of tired, dark eyes, staring out of a tiny mess. 
She drooped when he came up. 

“Tsn’t it awful?” 

“Awful,” said he. 

She rose and braced herself, tense against the com- 
ing tears. 

“You needn’t have said so!” 

“But it is. LEverything’s awful.” 

She flung a hand to the canvas, and blurted out be- 
fore the sob choked her: 


102 PERELLA 


“It’s the best I can do.” She wiped her face on the 
paint rag. “Goaway. You’re horrid. I wanted you 
to say it was all right, and you say it’s awful.” 

“But I didn’t,” said the amazed young man, groping, 
as young men grope, towards the first false light of dis- 
illusion. “I wasn’t thinking of your old picture. 
What does that matter? I said everything was awful. 
Come out and lunch; I’ve lots of things to tell you.” 

She had mother-wit, woman’s logic. She dismissed 
the picture. 

“Tf everything’s awful, it means that you’ve got 
something awful to say to me.” 

She stood resentful, the least attractive thing in that 
small world of calm Madonnas and shy lady saints. 
They were alone. The most hardened copyists had not 
brought out their easels that morning, and the last 
German tourist and his cubistically attired wife had 
gone in quest of cool beer. The attendant nodded in 
his chair in the doorway. Perella stood resentful, be- 
draggled—so far conscious of bedragglement as to be- 
tray the poor little vixen latent in every woman taken 
at a sex disadvantage. She stood before him in her 
dishevelment and her grotesquely smeared face and red 
eyes and uncared-for nose; and he stood before her 
floundering about among the more simple sex compli- 
cations of a man’s nature. He put his hand on her 
shoulder. 

“This scirocco is playing the devil with both of us. 
Pack up and wash and lunch in our cool tavern. Tl 
be sitting in a cab downstairs waiting for you.” 

Docile, she obeyed. ‘They had never shared so un- 
inspiring a meal. Although her face was now clean 
(perhaps because she had been horrified by the realiza- 
tion of the need of cleanliness) she was less the elf of 
his imaginings than a poor, plain, tired, poverty- 


ANTHONY 103 


stricken little girl of not much account. Deep down 
in her heart she still repudiated his protestations that 
her copy was not included in his proclamation of the 
general awfulness of the world. 

Perella was at her woman’s worst. If Anthony had 
taken her in his arms as soon as he had entered the 
gallery, she would have cried and cried and cried and 
been beatifically, miraculously, celestially happy. But 
he hadn’t done so. He had ill-temperedly laid on the 
world a curse regardless of the exorcising power of her 
love. She sat resentful. He sat resentful. How 
could he tell her now that, in this awful world to which 
he had awakened, the awful thing he had to announce 
was his fantastic overnight resolution to take her as a 
bride on the Belgian tour? 

Having to say something about the immediate future, 
he mentioned the Dinard project. She took the an- 
nouncement fatalistically. America she had accepted. 
Now Dinard. After all, what was she but a mote on 
the sunbeam of his life? It was damned hard lines, but 
what could she do? So her tired thoughts ran. 

“It’s so idiotic of people to say they despise money,” 
said he. ‘‘Money means the command of the joy and 
delight of the earth.” 

“Tt all depends on what you mean by joy and de- 
light,” said Perella wearily and wistfully. 

Anthony tipped over the great fiasco of Chianti in 
the cradle swing, and filled her glass. He said gaily: 

“I’m not going to be content, Perella mia, with love 
in a cottage. I want passion in a palace. I want 
everything!” 

She sighed, with a sense of death in her soul. 

“I’m afraid, Anthony dear, my everything”—she 
marked on the table-cloth a pitiful little circle with her 
forefinger—“‘is too small for you.” 


CHAPTER VII 


Tuar was the beginning of tragedy. Perhaps that 
was the way in which Perella saw the future. She 
drew the little circle of her life, in which she would 
find fulfilment of her needs. His was the limitless hori- 
zon. She was the linnet happy in her cage; he, the 
hawk, existing only in free aérial space. 

Anthony accompanied her to the great door of her 
gallery, and lounged to a café whence he telephoned to 
patrons whom he thought might still be im Florence. 
Chance favoured him. They would be pleased if he 
came out to tea. He sighed with gladness at the 
thought of the cool disposal of a sultry afternoon. 

Conscience pricked him for temporary abandonment 
of Perella. Yet he felt relief at his prudence in not 
giving effect to his night thoughts. For night 
thoughts are so often nightmare thoughts, and the dry 
light of day reveals their fantastic relative values. It 
would have been idiotic to talk with Perella of immedi- 
ate marriage. Obviously, the idea had never entered 
her head. Some epigrammatic wiseacre of his ac- 
quaintance had once said: “The greatest folly a man 
can commit is to exceed a woman’s expectation.” He 
sipped his glass of thin beer and turned over the saw. 
A sound saying. Let her have always something to 
hope for. Not only was it good for a woman’s soul, but 
it was a protective covering fora man. Idly he traced 
back the dictum of Halliday Armstrong, who was 
speaking of delicate professional problems in domestic 
architecture. He laughed. His master had spoken 


psychological truth of far wider import than he knew. 
104 


ANTHONY 105 


Anyhow, Dinard was a matter henceforward freed 
from discussion. Belgium could look after itself. 


She did not reproach him when she saw him off at the 
railway-station a day or two afterwards. <A speck of 
star-dust scattered by the hands of the high gods, what 
did she matter in the Cosmos? After all, he had come 
into her room that morning, defying all the proprieties 
of the Pension Toselli, and had taken her into his 
strong arms and had kissed her more continuously and 
perfectly than she could conceive any woman to have 
been kissed before, and had sworn more eternal fidelities 
than had ever reached woman’s ears and heart. The 
dear prettinesses of elf and fairy and dainty conscience 
had paled in the glow of warmer protestations. She 
could not doubt but that she was his belovéd. 

He kissed her once more before he mounted into the 
great international train, and hung out of the window, 
until the tiny figure waving hand from lips to air dis- 
appeared from his view. He threw himself back in his 
seat. A wonderful thing his Perella. <A bright-eyed 
mouse with the heart of a lioness! God! he would 
work for her. His nerves still vibrated with the close 
and innocent clasp of her—the melting into him of her 
wondrously delicate body. With shut eyes he thought 
of the rapturous minutes. Phew! it had been a hell of 
a temptation. Thank God, he had not been a cad. 
The flower of love was still in the exquisite purity of 
its bloom. Thank God, he had no cause for self- 
reproach. ‘Thank God, there were beauty and honour 
surviving in this muddy, post-war world. Thank God, 
he hadn’t been the damnedest of all damned fools! 

Now, when a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts 
of love, not, as in the spring, lightly, but somewhat ob- 
scuredly, with all sorts of flashes, red and livid, passing 


106 PERELLA 


athwart, he may be excused for being a bit muddled 
as to season. Which is another way of suggesting a 
dire confusion of emotional values. 

He rested for a day or two in Paris, scrambling up in 
the mornings in time for lunch, after all night dancing 
with friends at the dismal Anglo-American palaces of 
cacophony beloved of his kind. This heartened him 
against bereavement from his Perella. He still had 
friends of his own old world, glad to see him, glad to 
give him expensive meals and unlimited champagne, 
and bacon and eggs and beer at three o’clock in the 
morning. He found in this normal existence idyllic 
repose after the strenuously simple life of the Pension 
Toselli. Delicacy forbade over-insistence on it in his 
letters to Perella. Wise youth, however, he did not 
flaunt it at the Ritz or the Plaza Athénée, but con- 
tented himself with a modest room in a little hotel in 
the region of the Halles, where hundred franc notes had 
not yet become, in the eyes of a modest staff, the lowest 
unit of international currency. He had learned from 
sudden experience that self-indulgence at one’s own ex- 
pense is a fool’s game, which may be accounted to him 
as a virtue, in view of a temperament essentially gen- 
erous. He had received teaching in the matter too, 
both from Perella, professional economist, and from 
Beatrice Ellison, shrewd theorician. By thus saving 
up the pennies towards Perella’s peacocks, and living - 
in the meanwhile on the fat of the land, he was pleas- 
antly conscious of walking in the way of Wisdom. 


Dinard crowning the hill at the mouth of the estuary 
received him on a soft, golden afternoon. Across the 
water the venerable walls of St. Malo glowed in an 
early sunset. The Villa Mignon, a miniature palace, 
built on a bluff, had cool lawns and terraced gardens 


ANTHONY 107 


leading down to the sea. It was filled with the hum 
of voices and the freshness of summer dresses. ‘The 
servants of the Florence villa welcomed him as a friend 
who had come to help them out in a strange land. 
Beatrice, looking miraculously young, came forward, 
both hands outstretched. 

“My dear Anthony. How lovely to see you!” 

She presented him here and there to casual guests ; 
after a while took him out to see the view and wandered 
with him round the rococo, Teutonically imagined 
house, dreadful in design and ornament, but solid in its 
assurance of inner comfort. Suddenly she pushed 
open a door of a small pavilion attached to the main 
building. 

“You see, I keep my promises.” 

They entered a small vestibule. There he found the 
studio with its kind, cold north light, and its windows 
looking straight across the sea, and a bedroom and 
bathroom, just as she had described. And there were 
tapestries and open fireplaces, ready with great logs 
and warm-coloured rugs and all the dainty furnishings 
at the command of a woman of wealth with a sense of 
beauty. She handed him a key. 

“Keep the front door locked as often as you can, on 
account of bats and owls and thieves and such-like 
inquisitive people. But you see, you’re your own mas- 
ter to go and come as you please.” 

He laughed, took her hand and kissed it. 

“You place great trust in a mere artist adventurer.” 

“T can imagine no greater hell,” she replied, “than 
life without faith in those we——-” She paused for an 
imperceptible second, “‘—take to our hearts.” 

He flushed, bowed his head. 


“Dearest of ladies is 





108 PERELLA 


She moved to the studio window and pointed straight 
out. | 

“TI wonder what’s there.” 

“T should say, “Tintagel half in sea and high on land, 
A crown of towers.’ ” 

“Romantic. Also, nice of you to be able to quote 
Tennyson.” She smiled with a ripple of rounded 
shoulders. ‘Have you ever thought of the only legend 
that binds the two countries together?—Tristan and 
Iseult? Odd, too, that Wagner should have set on it 
the final seal of immortality. The Anglo-Saxon in me 
resents it.” | 

She turned again, giving him no time for reply, and 
prepared to show him the devious way through the 
house to the ordinary living-rooms. He recognized the 
quick drop of the curtain over the sentimental, and 
praised the toile de Jowy with which the passages were 
hung. She bestowed on him the grateful glance of the 
woman perfectly comprehended. 

“TI do hope you’ll be comfortable there,” she said, in 
the tone of any hostess. 

In drawing-room and on verandah, she introduced 
him to various members of the house-party who still 
lingered before retiring to dress for dinner. He re- 
alized from complimentary greetings that his arrival 
had been heralded. Indeed, his portrait of Mrs. El- 
lison, neatly framed, occupied a place of honour in the 
drawing-room. In that first half-hour he tasted the 
sweets of flattery. He had caught a remarkable pho- 
tographic likeness of the lady, and that was all the po- 
lite group really cared about. After all, when people 
have their portraits drawn or painted, they and their 
friends expect it to look like what they and their friends 
would see in a mirror, and not like something that a 


ANTHONY 109 


queer-visioned, kink-brained artist decides that they 
should resemble. 

Thus Anthony Blake entered the Villa Mignon as a 
finely advertised and already successful young man. 

The multitude of the dinner-party gave him a first 
shock of bewilderment. At Florence Mrs. Ellison had 
lived alone—with perhaps now and then a stray woman 
guest passing through. 

Here she was hostess to some score of cosmopolitan 
folk, with here and there the sparkle of a famous name. 
He realized, humorously, her protest in Florence 
against any offence against the eternal proprieties. 
She might have invited half a dozen young men like 
him, and they would have been lost, unquestioned, in the 
crowd. | 

At the head of the table she had an English General 
and an American ex-Ambassador to a Central Euro- 
pean State. Down the table Anthony sat between the 
wife of one and the daughter of the other. They lis- 
tened to his gay talk on art and life with such interest 
as to make him enchanted with himself. Once he 
caught a grateful smile from his hostess. He smiled 
back in acknowledgment of mutual understanding. 
He was flattered at her recognition of his repayment of 
hospitality in the only possible social way. She saw 
that he was exerting himself, all ad her majorem glo- 
riam, which is an epigrammatic, though hybrid, way 
of expressing the perfect guest. The fellow who sits 
mum-chance at table between two elegant ladies, and 
pushes food into his face, is a stumbling block and an 
offence, one never to be invited again, unless he may 
chance to be a mechanical jazz pirouettist or a financial 
oracle, in which case the hostess knows that if she puts 
a truffle into the slot and presses a button the figure will 


110 PERELLA 


work. But that is the cynical side of social life. Bea- 
trice Ellison had need neither of automatic dancers nor 
of plethoric financiers. She gave generously for gen- 
erously given gifts, and she had the genius of choosing 
her beneficiary donors. Perhaps that was why, in 
pleasantly triumphant self-congratulation, she sped 
her glance to Anthony who, dancer as might be, and 
oracle as certainly was not, gave to his end of the table 
of his delightful best. 

In this fashion began the most delectable life of lotus- 
eating and artistic work that young men could desire. 
Fair ladies sat to him in the mornings for their por- 
traits at double his Florentine fee. For this Beatrice 
Ellison, as agent, took responsibility. Florence was 
modest, she declared, but Dinard flaunted. There was 
scarce an inmate of the Royal Hotel but had a Rolls 
Royce and a Hispafio-Suisa in attendance outside, and 
scarce a woman that was not spending ten thousand 
francs a day at the vanity shops on things to stick on 
her back or her head. When people were burning 
money, it was an act of grace to rescue bank notes from 
the flames. Anthony opened a French banking ac- 
count with his earnings, and wrote to Perella that he 
was on the high road to Fortune. 

Apart from the studio he led a life of tennis and 
bathing and dancing and yachting with such Casino- 
dom thrown in as his hostess countenanced. One eve- 
ning he gambled, and, after modest beginnings, plunged 
deep, and at four in the morning let himself into his 
studio apartment, the winner of twenty thousand 
francs. Later, he proclaimed his triumph to his host- 
ess. She put both hands on his broad shoulders—she 
was an upstanding woman—and looked him squarely 
between the eyes. 


ANTHONY 111 


“The next time you feel tempted to put even a louis 
on the table, come right back here and pack up and bid 
me a polite farewell.” 

He laughed in his charming way, and touched her 
wrists with uplifted hands. 

“Isn’t that a reflection, dear Lady Paramount, on my 
common-sense?” 

“Tt is,” she declared. ‘You haven’t got any, as far 
as I can make out. So I must supply it. Process of 
forcible feeding, my dear Anthony.” 

He removed her hands, and kissed them. 

“But making money in that den of idiots is as easy 
as falling off a log.” 

This conversation took place one morning in his 
studio, whither she had gone to inspect the half-finished 
portrait of a friend. Unperceived by him she pressed 
an electric bell button. 

“I’m sorry you think so,” she said. ‘“There’s scarcely 
even an idiot in the Casino who’s of the same opinion. 
Anyway, a condition of your staying here is your prom- 
ise that there’ll be no more gambling.” 

He stood for a few moments facing her, hurt in his 
young pride and his manhood. He spoke in fierce re- 
sentment. 

““Y ou’ve been very, very kind to me, Mrs. Ellison, but 
you’ve no right to dictate what I shall do and what I 
shall not do.” 

“T have rights that you possibly may not be aware 
of,”’ she said. 

“And what are they?” 

“I’m a woman who knows the world. You’re a man 
just beginning to discover it. You’ve had the misfor- 
tune to win a large sum of money at the tables. You 
think you'll go again and win more. You won’t. 
You'll lose it all, and everything else you’ve got be- 


112 PERELLA 


sides. Iknow. I happen to be fond of you, in the way 
of dignity that a woman of my age can be fond of a 
man of yours.” 

“T’m overwhelmed and embarrassed,” said Anthony, 
“but I’m a free agent.” 

“Just as you like,” she replied. “Only you must 
choose between your den of idiots and me.” 

At that moment a man-servant entered the studio. 
Mrs. Ellison said nothing. Anthony, unaware of sum- 
mons, stared at him blankly. 

‘You rang, sir?” said the man. 

“T rang for Mr. Blake,” said Beatrice. “He has 
something to say to you.” 

There followed a few tense moments of conflict 
of wills. The ultimatum, masterfully contrived, An- 
thony appreciated. But man-like, he was the first to 
realize and fear the absurdity of the situation. He 
glanced at the man-servant standing in an attitude of 
respectful enquiry. His brain worked quickly. He 
went to the writing-table and scribbled off a message 
on a telegraph form which he handed to the man, who 
retired at once. | 

Intrigued, and within herself greatly disquieted, she 
asked: 

“What are you cabling about?” 

He had dashed it off from a full pen and blotted it 
on a clean piece of blotting-paper. ‘This he took up. 

“Tike to see 1t?” 

He held it up for her inspection in front of a mirror. 
She deciphered, with a little knitting of the brows. 

“Jones. Clerkenwell Road, London. Buy bananas. 
Fondest love. Eric.” 

“What does it mean?” she asked. 

“That I leave you to guess,” said he. 


ANTHONY 113 


Very much on his dignity, he drew a cigarette from 
his case, and tapped the end. 

She broke into honest laughter. 

““You’re rather a dear, after all, aren’t you?” 

Her eyes were so clear, her words rang so true, that 
the laughter, too, came into his face. 

“T yield,” said he, “unconditionally.” Then he went 
to a drawer and pulled out a great wad of mille notes. 
“Tf you think I oughtn’t to keep this, take it. Charity, 
you know. Home for rheumatic swans—anything you 
like.” 

She bade him pay the money into the bank and think 
no more about it. Which, like a prudent young man, 
fortified by the consciousness of having made a beau 
geste, he immediately did. 

July melted deliciously into August. Cornelius 
Adams arrived full of plans for Anthony’s future. 
Why should he bother with oil painting at all, when 
there was a fortune before him in black and white? 
Cornelius Adams posed before him a florid. coolly 
dressed, prosperous Mecenas. 

“When you get to New York, I’ll see that you talk 
big money,” said he. 

In mid-August came the Duchesse de Montfaucon, 
bright, dark, alluring, wearing her pearls with the air 
of a great lady of France. Her French was of the 
purest. She even spoke English with a touch of French 
accent that was not affectation. 

When Anthony expressed his astonishment of this 
exotic product of Chicago, his hostess rebuked him. 

“That sort of thing from English people always 
makes me mad. If the Duchess were Italian or Greek 
or Rumanian, you would take her aristocracy for 
granted, but because she’s American you wonder how 


114 PERELLA 


she has the nerve to live up to her position. There 
really are wealthy Americans who haven’t started life 
_by selling papers at street corners and married wives 
who took in washing. Peggy Blaydes comes of a proud 
old colonial Virginia stock, and belongs perhaps to the 
fourth generation of carelessly wealthy people. I 
can’t see much difference between her, from the point 
of view of breeding, and your Cavendishes and Sey- 
mours. John Blaydes never went about killing pigs 
in the Chicago stockyards. He is the owner of im- 
mense real estate which came to him from his forbears, 
just like your Dukes of Portland and Westminster, and 
so forth. Peggy Blaydes was born a great lady, 
brought up as a great lady, and—as anybody with a 
grain of sense can see—is to-day in every sense of the 
word, a great lady.” 

“YT humble myself before you,” said Anthony, hav- 
ing listened to this and a further diatribe. ‘“‘But, mind 
you, I never said she wasn’t grande dame. 'That’s ob- 
vious. Yet, you know—forgive me for certain preju- 
dices—even I, in my limited way, have met greater 
Grandes Dames than the Duchesse de Montfaucon.” 

“Mention one,” she cried indignantly. 

He spread out his hands and smiled in his charmingly 
humorous way. 

“Beatrice Ellison,” said he. 

The compliment pleased. There was a short inter- 
val for pleasant adjustment of points of view. ‘Then 
he asked: 

“What about the Duke?” 

Mindful of Shakespeare, she replied: 

“Quite a good egg as eggs go, but ill-roasted—all on 
one side. You can guess the side.” 

‘The inconceivable ass!” cried Anthony. 


ANTHONY 115 


Beatrice nodded. “Isn’t he? But don’t you go and 
fall in love with her and make the mess thicker.” 

“I? Good Lord, no. Not me.” 

She smiled at his vehemence, and said teasingly: 

“After all, why not? What’s the matter with her?” 

His mind flashed back to the bit of pack-thread of a 
girl he had left in Florence; to Perella as she stood on 
the station platform, in her cheap hat and shabby daf- 
fodil frock, a heat-exhausted tiny thing of no account, 
save that of her great dark eyes which, following him, 
seemed to have eclipsed all her features. 

He frowned, racked his brain for words, found them, 
and smiled. 

“A wise British moth doesn’t cultivate desires for 
stars”—he waved a vague hand towards the Duchess’s 
possible whereabouts—“even of the second magnitude.” 

“Second?” cried Beatrice, amused and taken off her 
guard. 

With a low bow he Beportalated. 

“Dearest of ladies!” said he. “Why make a poor 
man explain the obvious so often?” 

She laughed. “You’ll make your way. I don’t see 
why I should bother about you.” 

A glance, tender and wistful, hung on him and robbed 
her words of any reproach save that of the playful. 
' It did more. It established, as nothing had done up to 
then, a little secret, sentimental, mutual understanding. 
It dethroned her from a regally maternal position; set 
her by his side, more or less, as an attractive, still young 
woman, on a level with an agreeable and somewhat ac- 
complished young man. And then: 

“The fact of your bothering about me is so marvel- 
lous,” said he, “that I can’t think of anything else all 
day long.” 


116 PERELLA 


What other riposte was possible to an artistic An- 
thony, trained in a hedonistic world and temperamen- 
tally averse from the vulgarities of its modern expres- 
sion? 

A day or two before he had told her that he should 
have loved to live in the days of lace ruffles and courtly 
gesture and observance. He had defended the sin- 
cerity of that so-called artificial age. If a girl was 
Queen of your Heart, why not call her so in set terms? 
If a woman suggested to you the fragrance of May, 
why not tell her so in such imagery as was at your dis- 
posal? Why pay her, poverty-stricken, in coppers, 
when you could lavish on her the gold of language? 
The inarticulate, he recognized, had to get on as best 
they could. He had conjured up a typical scene. A 
bench on Hampstead Heath. A youth and maiden in 
close proximity. From him a dig in the ribs and a 
grin. “Eh?” From her a downcast look. “Aw.” 
A rough arm thrown round a neck. “Give me a kiss.” 
Kiss taken. “Oh, Freddie!” Interval. “I’m a 
straight girl, you know.” Indignation. “Do you 
suppose I’d have done it if I didn’t want to marry 
you?” Rapture. Etcetera. But there were the in- 
finite octaves of woman’s sensibilities left untouched. 
Just one note of sex struck. Never a chord played, 
never a harmony. . . . He had carried his theme from 
the vulgar on Hampstead Heath to the expensively at- 
tired in drawing-rooms and restaurants. The same old 
sex note struck with perhaps the accompaniment of a 
slang-jazz dissonance, the girl still awaiting, craving 
in her immortal soul, although she knew it not, the es- 
sential music of a lover’s tribute, and getting only a 
jingle of “old things” and “rippings” and “sticking 
it out together.” 

“IT often wonder,” he went on, “why other women in 


ANTHONY 117 


this place have the effrontery to sit to me for their por-- 
traits.” 

“Why ‘effrontery’?” 

“T might have said ‘cheek,’ but I hate using slang to 
express my deep emotions.” 

‘“"That’s perilously near what used to be called a dec- 
laration,” she said gaily. 

He waxed audacious. ‘And if it were?” 

“IT should point out to you the first item in the Table 
of Affinities in the Book of Common Prayer.” 

It pleased her to be merry. She waved his protest 
away with a laugh, and made a graceful retirement 
which, a while afterwards, she could scarcely account as 
one of victory or of retreat. 

No artistically temperamental young Anthony could 
come out of such an encounter with a great and gra- 
cious lady without a flattering sense of triumph. One 
may be accepted for one’s power, one’s money, one’s 
talent—all that is very well. But the thing that is 
dearest and closest to oneself is one’s own personality ; 
and to be accepted for that is the highest of tributes. 
So may cry a man in a mean street: “I may expend 
my life’s energies in dressing tripe, but She sees the real 
glowing ego beneath the greasy surface.” And An- 
thony, perhaps by his temperament and education, had 
a higher sense of his ego-value than his brother, the 
 tripe-merchant. 

Thus two people parted, for a few hours, on an Au- 
gust afternoon, each in an agreeable frame of mind. 

Anthony attacked the Duchess’s portrait with pecu- 
~ liar fervour. It was his most important commission. 
She was by far the most beautiful woman who had sat 
tohim. . . . Yet, as he watched her between the strokes 
of his rapid crayon, he became conscious of a myriad 
radiances and darknesses following each other in infinite 


118 PERELLA 


succession, across her perfect features. She seemed to 
hold the pose as though unaware of his presence, giving 
herself up to a fantastic and unconjecturable proces- 
sion of thoughts. 

When the sitting was over and she desired to see how 
far he had progressed, he begged to be excused. At 
the present stage it was only a horrible gribowillage—he 
had picked up the term for the first rough smears from 
Perella, who had studied in Paris—and was unfit for 
human inspection. As a matter of fact, the thing was 
well on its way to completion; but it was wooden and 
dull and had none of the quickening spirit of life that 
even the most ignorant must perceive in the great un- 
finished portrait. 

‘“‘T'o-morrow,”’ said he, “‘all will be different.” 

For twenty-four hours Anthony was the most de- 
pressed of artists. His great chance had come. Suc- 
cess meant everything. Failure, he knew not what. 
So far did he think it desirable to retain nerve-control 
that—unprecedented sacrifice—he refused champagne 
at dinner. He slept badly, tortured by dreams of elu- 
sive beauty. In the morning he looked at his drawing. 
In an artist’s exaggerated way he had the feeling of a 
creator looking on what he had made and beholding it 
very bad, instead of very good. He tore it across and 
threw it away. 

When the Duchesse de Montfaucon arrived, he made 
his apologies. . . . His attack was wrong. He had 
tried to do the impossible. He went off into technicali- 
ties. She, most charming and understanding of women, 
smiled her readiness to place herself at his entire dis- 
posal. He posed her at a new angle, worked with a 
despairing fever he had never known before. At the 
end of two hours, he asked, quivering: 

“Can you stand another fifteen minutes?” 


ANTHONY 119 


“Thirty, if you like.” , 
He worked on. At last, clammy and faint and 
spent, he threw his crayon across the studio and handed 

her the drawing. 

“That’s the best I can do.” 

She held it out before her. 

“Charming, delightful,” she said politely. “You 
will send it to me when you have ‘fixed’ it?” 

“Of course,” said he. 

He conducted her through the studio door and round 
the house to the front where her car awaited her. 

“T shall be so glad to have it,” she said. ‘A thou- 
sand times thanks.” 
_ She smiled adorably, and drove off. He went back 
to the studio, poured the fixing spirit over the drawing 
and set it todry. He looked at it, dead-beat, defeated, 
down-and-out. The far-off warning gong sounded for 
lunch. He felt a sudden horror of the polite crowd. 
A summoned servant bore a message to his hostess that 
he would be lunching elsewhere. In half an hour he 
was in the Saint-Malo ferry-boat. He had a meal 
among French people in a crowded little commercial ho- 
tel in the middle of a narrow flag-paved street, smelling 
damp and fishy in spite of the gorgeous sunshine of the 
August day. Anything to get away from his kind. 
He found a place at a table where everyone, men, 
women and children, was fat and perspired and had ta- 
ble napkins tucked under their chins, and ate bread 
by the yard, and mopped up sauce with the crumb, and 
used toothpicks vaingloriously, and were very full and 
very happy, and fortunately failed to perceive that 
among them was an artist who had made an utter fail- 
ure of his career. 

The golden sands of Paramé lured him. He fell 


fast asleep; awoke late in the afternoon with a head- 


120 PERELLA 


ache, and made his way back to Dinard. He entered 
his studio by the private door. On his table lay a let- 
ter. Opening it he found a polite little note from the 
Duchesse de Montfaucon and her cheque for the amount 
which Cornelius Adams had arranged. 


He dressed for dinner and found Beatrice in the 
great drawing-room. She rose and came to him. 

“I’m so glad of this moment or so alone. What’s the 
meaning of your letter to the Duchess?” 

“How do you know about it?” 

“She telephoned me to go round. I went, saw the 
picture and your letter.” 

“Don’t you think I was doing the only honest thing 
in telling her she could tear up the dreadful portrait as 
I was tearing up her cheque? My God! Even a boot- 
maker refuses to charge for a pair of ill-fitting boots.” 

‘““But he keeps the boots,” said Beatrice. 

He flung up his hands. ‘That’s the only difference 
between the bootmaker and the artist.” He made a 
turn about the room. “It was vilely bad, wasn’t it?” 

His voice broke queerly. She saw a suspicion of 
tears in his eyes. Her woman’s heart melted over him. 

“My dear boy, Sargent himself couldn’t have painted 
her !” 


And she kissed him. 


CHAPTER VIII 


TuE motherly, sisterly, sentimental kiss, and the moth- 
erly, sisterly, sentimental attitude of Beatrice did much 
to heal wounded vanity. The Duchesse de Montfaucon 
came too, pathetically praising the portrait and im- 
ploring him to accept the cheque. She was the most 
hopeless sitter that ever was, she explained. As soon as 
she got into a pose, she became like a stuffed bird, all 
expression gone, and her conscious effort not to look 
stupid only intensified the blankness of her face. 
World-famous painters to whom she had sat had told 
her so. All of which was more balm, most graciously 
applied. But he stood out resolute against payment. 
His artistic integrity proclaimed a failure disconcerting 
almost to tragedy. It marked in blood red, as on a war 
map, the zone of his limitations. . . . Perhaps if he 
had seen Peggy de Montfaucon in the distance, a pretty 
woman unknown, and, struck by her air and her beauty, 
had made a rapid sketch of her, it might have been a 
success. He would have got the superficial resem- 
blance, in his facile way. But, set down to achieve 
something more, he had failed—failed lamentably. It 
was a brutal revelation of his superficiality; and the 
knowledge hurt. In his own words to Beatrice: “It 
hurts like ‘hell!” | 

He was an honest boy. That was why she liked him, 
was beginning to love him. - 

He told her this, in the stern sheets of a little sailing 
boat on a sunny afternoon. ‘They were going through 
dancing water to the island of Césambres for a tea pic- 


nic. ‘The rest of the party, preferring to dance on dry 
121 


122 PERELLA 


land, were to make a swift crossing in the motor launch. 
Anthony held the tiller under the captaincy of a wizened 
Breton who looked after the sails filled with a stiff 
breeze. The blue-green sea swirled on a level with the 
gunwale on the starboard side where Beatrice lounged 
lazily on the cushions, bare-armed, her hand swept by 
the water. 

“I’m a charlatan, a fake,” said he. 

““You’re the only clever modern young man I’ve met 
who’s not devoured by conceit, and that’s why I like 
you,” she said. 

“But I am eaten up with conceit,” he cried. “And 
I’ve come to the point when I find that there’s nothing 
left for conceit to eat up.” | 

“Attention, monsieur, attention,’ shouted the Breton, 
as the self-accusmg young man forgot for an instant 
the tiller so that the mainsail flapped and the boom 
swung over and they shipped a considerable wave. 

‘You see,” said he in humiliation, after things were 
righted, “what a helpless fool I am. If anybody had 
told me half an hour ago that I couldn’t sail a boat I’d 
have cut their throat for the insult. I’ve done it since I 
was ten years old. And now, see what an ass I’ve made 
of myself. I nearly capsized the darned thing. I’m 
not fit to live.” 

The course again set, and her fingers trailing in the 
sea, she said: 

“Tf the world were really populated by the survival 
of the fittest, it would be rather a dreadful planet. 
Fancy nobody left in the world but people like Aaron 
and Hannibal, the mother of the Gracchi, King Arthur, 
and Peter the Hermit, and John Knox and Hannah 
More and Michael Angelo and the Prince Consort and 
Mr. Gladstone and Dempsey. ‘There’d be nothing left 
worth living for!” 


ANTHONY 123 


He laughed. “You mean to be consolatory, Ma- _ 
donna Beatrice, but it’s a bit of a back-handed compli- 
ment, isn’t it?” 

“T’ve no use for people without flaws,” she said. 

“So long as you have the least bit of use for me,” 
he ventured, “my life is justified.” 

Thenceforward were their relations on a sentimental 
basis, mutually though silently confessed. 

In him she saw the best of youth—gaiety, honesty, 
pride, manliness; quick response to woman’s mood; 
ungauged potentiality of success. Except for the 
gambling episode, she could find no fault with his out- 
look on life, and his manner of expressing it in conduct; 
and that in itself was one of the flaws she valued so 
highly in the human gem. He was amenable, sensi- 
tive, honourable, yet weak, self-doubting. If ever 
young man with a future before him needed a woman’s 
guiding hand, that young man was Anthony Blake. 

The instinct of creation in human beings is so insist- 
ent as to be incomprehensible, were it not to be referred 
to the primary sex instinct of continuity. No great 
creator of art or empire, no synthesist, has ever been 
sexless, as so many of the philosophers, the analysts, 
have notoriously been. Poor little physically useless 
Emanuel Kant, who made the final dissection of the 
human mind and soul, stands on the one side, a lusty 
Fra Lippo Lippi, with his masculine wonders of begot- 
ten flesh and blood and beauty, stands on the other. 
Every normally sexual human being is guided through 
life by the secondary impulses towards the creation of 
something. In its fervent form the result is art, con- 
quest, the monument of the ego, whatever it may be, 
which, if sought, is there for the looker-round to behold. 
Did ever drab and flabby lady give a successful dinner- 
party? 


124 PERELLA 


Beatrice Ellison, superb in the matronly plenitude of 
her forty years, yearned blindly towards creation: the 
creation of a man’s career. She obeyed, indeed, a sec- 
ondary impulse. Of course, there were primary im- 
pulses too; but clean-minded women are accustomed to 
kick primary instincts into a dark corner and pretend 
to forget all about them. 

In her, Anthony found a mellowness and a wisdom 
hitherto undreamed of in his crude, though far from 
cynical philosophy of woman. He styled her Ma- 
donna, in the old Italian fashion, and the term in its 
romantic nicety, signified his appreciation of her warm 
and courtly personality. There were times when the 
grey veil of twenty years fell from her, and she stood 
radiantly young, tall, slim, a paradox of colour, with 
her black hair, deep blue eyes, and sea-shell complexion. 
Still holding the dignity of command, she could relax 
into girlish charm. Wherever she went, she carried 
with her, according to the boy’s poetic fancy, an invisi- 
ble retinue of pagan Amori trailing exquisitely crin- 
kled ribbons. . . . 

In the meantime, he played tennis, and bathed, and 
danced, and talked fantastic nonsense to appreciative 
damsels, and generally conducted himself to his own 
whole-hearted enjoyment, like any ordinary, well-bred 
young man in a pleasant and idle society. The delight 
of it was enhanced by an occasional command from his 
Madonna. 

“One duty dance with me, and that’s all—yjust to 
show that you’re a polite young man.” 

“But I want to dance with you every time and all 
the time.” 

“So do I. But. And it’s a final but... Va! 
Oust!” 

She shoo’d him away enchantingly; so that, dancing 


ANTHONY 125 


with unconsidered matrons and maidens, he had the 
thrill of her stepping spiritually in his arms to the 
rhythm of the music, ever renewed by her eyes’ laugh- 
ing recognition of his virtue when they crossed on the 
crowded floor. The subtle understanding was worth 
a hundred dances. 

August passed, leaving him with the assurance that 
it had been the best of all possible Augusts, and a visit 
to his bank—in order to make financial arrangements 
for impending change—made him certain that it was 
the best of all possible fairy-godmother banks. 


In the meanwhile there was always Perella writing 
him brave little letters from Florence. For the moment 
she had no orders for copies, for which she was almost 
inclined to thank Providence, considering the August 
stuffiness of picture-galleries—and was taking advan- 
tage of the off-season to stick her easel out of doors at 
Saint Miniato, Fiesole—wherever she could—and paint 
bits of blue Tuscan hills. Perhaps one of these days 
someone might buy them, and the proceeds might go to 
the projected purchase of peacocks. If she were very 
successful, they might even run to a white one, which 
she had always understood to be the final symbol of 
luxury. She made playful comment on the Pension 
Toselli. The Brabazon ladies had gone on their yearly 
visit to a brother’s house in Tunbridge Wells, while the 
brother himself and his wife did their yearly cure in 
Vichy. In this way were family ties held perdurable 
and strong. ‘The Grewsons had taken a month’s locum- 
tenancy at a church in Brixton. Mr. Enderby, the 
young man from Cook’s, had returned from a holiday 
at Margate, and, doyen of the pension, sat on Madame 
Toselli’s right hand, while she, next in seniority, sat on 
her left. The rest of the inmates were weird birds 


126 PERELLA 


of passage. Many English and American school- 
mistresses—most of them the most pathetic of dears, 
who wanted to suck out of pictures and architecture 
something that pictures and architecture couldn’t give 
them. She shyly indicated that she might be like unto 
them had she not her Anthony! . . . And there were 
Germans who booked rooms under English names, and 
spoke the most careful English, and gave themselves 
away at every turn of a mouthful. There was one wid- 
ower who even went so far as to adopt a Yorkshire ac- 
cent, saying that he came from Sheffield, but who for- 
got that only the most eccentric inhabitant of a town 
least conspicuous in the world for eccentricity, would 
wear a broad gold wedding ring, and boots with elastic 
sides, and would profess fulsome admiration for the 
poetry of Fiona Macleod. 'To the credit of Madame 
Toselli, patriotic Englishwoman, her way with Teu- 
tonic transgressors was short. In Perella’s words— 
she just heaved*them out. The Italians might think 
German money good; she thought it filthy. Her 
brother, having been done to death in a German prison 
camp, she would not have his possible murderer sitting 
at her table. “I could turn you all out to-morrow,” 
cried the ample and excellent lady, “and fill up the place 
with Germans who would pay me three times your 
terms. But I’m not going to doit. I stick to what I 
said before the war, and all through the war. ‘There 
never has been a good German, there isn’t a good Ger- 
man, and there never will be a good German. If you 
think I’m narrow-minded, thank God I walk in the 
straight and narrow path that leads to salvation, and 
not in the broad way that’s going to lead a world of 
fools to eternal bonfire.” 

Madame Toselli emitted now and then unexpected 
literary flashes. She had been a High School mistress 


ANTHONY 127 


in the days gone by, and on one of her holidays had met 
the fascinating and now defunct Toselli. 

Thus, in her letters, Perella, passim. She had a 
dainty trick of narrative and description. Her ac- 
count of Mr. Enderby of Cook’s “personally conduct- 
ing’”’ her to a cinema was a masterpiece of sly humour. 

To these happy, care-free letters Anthony replied in 
kind. He dwelt much on the sterner aspect of his work, 
impressing her with his self-sacrificing industry. 
There he was, pencil in hand, during the golden hours 
when the idlers hung about pleasant beaches and cool 
bars. At times, however, he, too, was descriptive, il- 
lustrating his letter with neat little freehand sketches— 
the great gate of St. Malo leading to the port, bits of 
the wall, the Pont Roulant at low-tide, that four-legged, 
forty foot high, spidery thing that has carried the ferry 
between St. Malo and St. Servan for years mnumer- 
able. He longed to see Perella before their cruel sepa- 
ration, and she could count on his rushing down to Flor- 
ence were it only for a few days. He explained that 
affairs purely commercial detained him in Dinard. 
He had arranged for an exhibition early in September 
where he would show, not only various portraits made 
on commission, but also many odds and ends of sketches 
of local types, Breton farm and fisher-folk which, if 
sold, would swell the funds for the Great Campaign. 

He said nothing of the Belgian project or of its corol- 
lary, respectable marriage, those being the fantastic 
children of scirocco and nightmare. At last a letter 
came in which even he noticed a break in her courage: 

“Oh, my dear, if you don’t come and kiss me just 
once again, I thmk [ll wilt away.” 

Of course he would go. The exhibition could look 
after itself. After all, he wasn’t going to stand he- 
hind a counter and sell his pictures like silk stockings. 


128 PERELLA 


The Casino authorities, who levied their percentage, 
were perfectly honest and capable. 

He waylaid his hostess in the garden on the top of 
the cliff, her favourite resort for morning air and medi- 
tation. The weather had broken, a blustering wind 
whipped a grey Channel, and great breakers dashed 
on the bastion of rocks far below and sprayed even the 
terrace where she sat. She smiled up at his approach, 
commended him for common-sense in wearing a sweater 
beneath his jacket, and commented on the fascination 
of turbulent elements. Her welcome checked the al- 
ready formulated apology for disturbing her during 
the half-hour of solitude she claimed from her guests. 
She bade him sit and enjoy the vapour bath of sea-salt ; 
pointed out a poor black tramp pitching and rolling in 
the trough of mid-channel. 

“Poor devils, they’re having a doing,” said he, by 
way of obvious remark. 

“If only it was clean and free from cockroaches, I 
should love to be on board.” 

She rhapsodized prettily about the sea, and told him 
idly the joyous history of a yacht’s wreck off Honduras — 
when she was a girl. Then suddenly, her face aglow, 
she pointed to an angry wall of water that rolled to- 
wards them with the majesty of Fate, and, just before 
it broke, she seized his hand instinctively and waited 
during the second’s suspense for the thunder of its at- 
tack. They leaned forward over the parapet and 
watched the wave and froth and spray leap madly up 
the cliff, and caught on their faces the tiny arrow- 
points of salt. 

‘“‘You’re a most sympathetic and tactful person to 
have thought of coming to enjoy this with me.” 

How could Anthony destroy a happy mood by tell- 
ing her that he came to announce his immediate depar- 


ANTHONY 129 


ture for Florence? Sympathetic and tactful young 
men don’t de such things. Besides, in the setting of 
scudding cloud and angry sea and grey, wind-swept 
garden, she looked young and strong, extraordinarily 
fresh and vital. And the plague, or the thrill, or the 
devil of it was that the fine, capable hand that had 
caught his wrist now lay quite contentedly in his 
clasp. 

“One of these days,” she said, looking out to sea, 
“when you’ve done a lot of work and earned a holiday, 
we must charter a yacht and three or four picked 
souls and let ourselves loose on whatever ocean we 
fancy.” 

“"There’s only one ocean,” said he. 

‘And that?” 

“The Pacific.” 

“The South Seas? Hermann Melville, Stevenson, 
Courad,..::” 

She laughed and pressed his fingers. ‘Romantic 
boy! But I wouldn’t have you different. ... My 
idea was Scapa Flow, or Norway, or Cape Horn, or 
this sort of thing,”—she waved her free hand—“yet if 
you prefer Honolulu or Samoa—why not?” 

‘With you, Madonna mia, all oceans would be 
equally adorable.” 

She sprang to her feet, with once more a laugh, lithe, 
alluring, the incarnation of health, and dragged him 
up with her, playfully. She sighed. 

“We must goin. Duty calls.” 

The wind across the garden had risen toa gale. She 
took his arm and mere elemental forces drew their bod- 
ies very near together. 

It was only in the evening before dinner that he had 
another chance of speaking with her alone. And then 
it was she who gave him the opening. 


130 PERELLA 


“What are your plans between leaving here and sail- 
ing for America?” 

He made a desperate leap. “That’s just what I 
was wanting to tell you, but ’ve not known how. I’m 
afraid I must get away to-morrow or the day after. I 
must go back to Florence for a bit.” 


“Florence?” 
He nodded. Her brow wrinkled into lines of per- 
plexed incredulity. 


“What for?” 

He had debated in a worried mind whether he should 
give Paris or London as alternative destination. Lon- 
don with the stress of family affairs, was good; but here 
he was on a main sea-route to England. Beatrice, in 
the kindness of her heart, would see that he was shipped 
comfortably off to Southampton by the midnight boat 
from St. Malo. To get to Florence he would have to 
do the Channel crossing all over again. Paris had the 
merit of perfect convenience. But what could he say 
he was going to do in Paris in early September? In 
both cases she would have to hear eventually from him 
in Florence. To leave a lady who had showered such 
graciousness on him, without news of his doings for 
weeks, after one bread and butter letter, was unimag- 
inable. His declared destination, therefore, must be 
Florence. But he had not counted on her amaze- 
ment. 

“What on earth can take you to Florence?” she 
added. 

The moment which he had secretly been dreading for 
the past week or two had arrived. Her eyes glowed 
dark with suspicion. What else in a woman’s mind 
than another woman could drag him back from the 
Brittany coast to Central Italy? In the simplest for- 
mula of speech he could confess the other woman. But 


ANTHONY 131 


he knew—good God, how could anyone but a fool help 
knowing?—that such confession would sweep the regal 
lady and all that the grace and power of her queendom 
meant to his third-rate artist’s career—he was honest 
in his self-valuation—for ever out of his life. He stood 
for a second or two—it seemed an immeasurable space 
of time—in a sweating agony of decision. 

“I’ve left a trunk behind,” said he, at last, “with lots 
of sketches and some important family papers. I must 
go and get it.” 

“Why did you leave it behind?” 

He recovered his assurance and laughed. 

“Pure cussedness. I didn’t want to be bothered with 
the dreadful thing.” 

His air of candour reassured her, and her eyes re- 
gained their serenity. 

““A telegram or two, and my people at the villa will 
go and collect your trunk and put it on a train, and 
send it to any place you like.” 

He murmured that it was kind of her, while wonder- 
ing how the deuce he could see Perella. He found him- 
self resenting the distance of Florence from ordinary 
civilized centres. If Perella lived in Paris, things 
would be comparatively simple. There was nothing 
for it, but that she must join him somehow in London. 
After all, he had booked his passage for the 28th Sep- 
tember, and no one could question a month’s busy prep- 
aration in England. 

“I only asked you about your plans,” she said, “‘be- 
cause mine have been suddenly changed. I must go 
next week to Hungary.” 

It was histurntoecho. “Hungary?” 

“Why not?” she cried, with a laugh. “It’s a coun- 
try of some repute, and quite nice people have lived 
there in their time.” 


132 PERELLA 


She told her trivial story. It was the question of an 
estate, her property, that, in fact, of her late husband, 
who besides being a connoisseur of stained glass had 
been a mighty hunter before the Lord. A shooting-box 
in the midst of goodness knows how many square miles 
of forest. Farms, too, were attached to the property. 
She had not seen it since pre-war times. Things were 
going wrong. The house was falling to pieces. Bela 
Kun’s people, a few years back, had helped themselves 
to timber. The tenants were sweating blood to pay 
her, at the present rate of exchange, about ten dollars 
a year. In fact, the ridiculous place had been worry- 
ing the life out of her. Now, as she heard from her 
lawyer and agent in Buda-Pesth, a Dutchman had 
turned up desirous of purchasing the estate. He was 
undecided whether to make it an international shooting- 
gallery for wild boar, or a sanatorium for the over- 
eaten. In either case the tenants of the little farms 
would be like to come off badly. And there were all 
kinds of other complications which she couldn’t under- 
stand, much less explain. At any rate, she must go to 
Buda-Pesth to see her lawyer, and thence, with him 
and the Dutchman, to Ipolysag, near which her prop- 
erty was situated. 'The Dutchman was already there. 
No time could be lost. 

“It’s a long journey to take all by myself,” she said. 
“YT was wondering whether you’d have pity on me, and 
see me through. It’s a new country for you, most pic- 
turesque, and you could fill sketch-books while I wres- 
tled with the Dutchman.” 

He felt the meshes of a strange net closmg round 
him, and made an effort to escape. He repeated to her 
the argument he had used to himself. 'The booked pas- 
sage, the need of two or three weeks in England, to ar- 
range his affairs, see his family, replenish his ward- 


ANTHONY 133 


robe so that the immigration authorities should not re- 
gard him as an out-at-elbows emigrant, and throw him 
into the dungeons of Ellis Island. 

*You’ve only to put off your sailing,” she said se- 
renely. “A month in Hungary will be quite as valu- 
able as a month in New York. It’s just a matter of set- 
ting back your calendar. Cancel your cabin. I can 
get you one at a week’s notice by whatever line you care 
to travel.” She smiled, with the air of one conscious 
of power. “Don’t you believe me?” 

“I’m sure,” said he, “that if you sent out a wireless 
message: ‘Beatrice Ellison requires a first-class ocean 
liner immediately,’ in the course of a few hours the 
Olympic would come dashing up, with the captain on 
the poop, his hand on his heart, putting himself and his 
poor craft at your disposal.” 

The imaginative touch pleased her. She swept 
away with a laugh, as one of the few remaining guests 
entered the drawing-room, and said over her shoulder: 

“It’s settled, then?” 

He bowed. “As your ladyship pleases.” 

The net was drawn tight. And drawn by the kind- 
est and gentlest hands in the world. He was caught, 
as the owner of the hands undoubtedly considered, for 
his very great good. What could he do? The devil of 
it was that the place with the funny name, Ipolysag, 
caught his fancy; pictures rose before his mind of a 
fantastic, comic-opera population. He would go there, 
not as vacuous tourist, but as the guest of a great land- 
owner before whom all ways would be made smooth. 
And no common landowner withal, but an enchanting 
chatelaine. Such an opportunity might not recur in a 
lifetime. 

On the other hand, there was a little point of delicacy, 
of sensitiveness, of what you will. Any young man 


134 PERELLA 


can, in all honour, without thinking twice about it, ac- 
cept the hospitality of a rich woman in a large house, in 
the company of fellow-guests. But to be the guest of 
a woman on a long railway journey, in hotels and at 
restaurants, was a different matter. His young pride 
winced. 

Another member of the house-party entering the 
drawing-room, Beatrice left the two together and re- 
turned to Anthony. 

“T think it’s perfectly angelic of you. I’ve been try- 
ing to make up my mind to ask you for the past day or 
two, and I haven’t dared. I dreaded that long lonely 
journey.” 

He seized his chance. ; 

““My dear Beatrice,” said he, “don’t you know that 
I’m ever your most humble servant to command? But, 
of course, it’s understood that I pay my travelling ex- 
penses.” 

She led him to the embrasure looking out over the 
sea. 

“T don’t see how there can be any, save for mere food 
on the journey. I’ve got practically a whole wagon- 
lit carriage to myself.” She laughed at his puzzled 
brow. “You see, ve got to take rather a crew with 
me—my maid, and Fargus, my secretary, whom you 
know is 

“A charming fellow,” Anthony interjected. 

“And my chef, and my housekeeper, Mrs. Riardon, 
and Baratelli *? she counted them on her fingers, “‘so 
as to make life possible at the shooting-box. ‘The Hun- 
garian servants there do nothing but keep the place 
clean. That makes a party of eight already booked 
and paid for.” 

He scratched a knitted brow. “TI make it six.” 

“No, eight. Listen. I must have a compartment to 








ANTHONY 135 


myself. That’s two, isn’t it? My maid and Mrs. Riar- 
don, another; that’s four. The chef and the major- 
domo, that’s six. Fargus and an empty berth, that’s 
eight.” 

“But why should Fargus have such luxury?” 

“I don’t want any dreadful German Jew calling him- 
self Hungarian, or an American drummer butting into 
the middle of my household. . . . Well, there it is, An- 
thony: if you don’t mind chumming with Fargus, you’re 
as much at home in that train as you are here—and as 
you will be at Ipolysag.” | 

Again Fate was against him. She had bought the 
four compartments—railway fares for eight—without 
thought or reference to him. If he did not go, a fare 
and bed would merely be wasted. ‘There was no point 
of honour at all about it. He could only yield and call 
her wonderful. 

“In the meantime,” she said, “the car will find its way 
there and bring us back to Paris, and if you offer to 
pay half the petrol bill, you’ll reduce the delicate to the 
absurd.” 

He slept badly that night. The calm and unboast- 
ful power of enormous wealth disturbed him. She had 
taken the booking of eight places for six people as a 
matter of course. She had not even looked at the 
cheque which Fargus, in charge of arrangements, had 
presented to her for signature. She signed a dozen, 
from a hundred to a hundred thousand francs, every 
day. It was Mrs. Riardon’s and Fargus’s business to 
see that the bills were correct. As far as cash was con- 
cerned, she thought no more of this migration to Hun- 
gary than a bunch of violets bought in the streets. . . . 

And Perella. Poor, tiny, white-faced, luminous- 
eyed Perella. She seemed appallingly far away; a 
sprite flitting through a world of spaghetti and stained 


136 PERELLA 


table-cloths and abominable odours and rankly preten- 
tious tenth-rate humanity; yet a sprite taking damna- 
bly the colour of her disgusting environment. He saw 
her again, the poverty-stricken, heat-mangled wisp of a 
child who had waved her soiled rag of a handkerchief 
to him at the station of Florence, and unconsciously set 
her against the women of his surroundings during the 
past month, the laughing care-free girls of assured po- — 
sition who played tennis, swam and danced with him, sat 
to him, daintily dressed, exquisitely finished, and flaunt- 
ing even their modern vulgarity with a captivating air 
and a flourish; to say nothing of the proud and irre- 
proachable ladies into whose company he had been 
thrown, the Marchioness of Leominster, English aristo- 
crat, the Duchesse de Montfaucon, and his marvellous 
miracle of a Madonna Beatrice. 

Yet, he must write Perella, explain himself as best he 
might, as an impotent something or the other—he knew 
not what—caught up on Fortune’s Wheel. She must 
be patient. In London, in October, they would have 
together the wondertime of their lives. He was getting 
rich steadily. ‘The Hungarian trip would fill his port- 
folio with drawings which would dazzle the dealers of 
Bond Street and St. James’s Square. She need not 
worry her head about expenses. He, Fortunatus, 
would provide. All that he was doing had the symboli- 
cal aim of their happiness—the white peacock. He 
composed the letter over and over again in the dark- 
ness. In the morning he wrote a shame-souled précis. 

A week later, in Beatrice Ellison’s shooting-box in 
Hungary, he received a telegram from Florence. | 


“Father’s dead. Starting for London.” 


PART III 
SILVESTER 
CHAPTER IX 


Mrs. Annaway, who had no right to the name, poor 
lady, received Perella in the Battersea flat, and fell 
into her arms, and they mingled their tears together. 

‘He was the best and dearest man in the world,” she 
sobbed, ‘‘and God knows how I loved him.” 

She was racked with sorrow, and Perella became her 
comforter. A touch of commonness, a lack of restraint 
added poignancy to her despair. She was a slim, fair 
and way-worn woman to whom life, except during the 
last three years with Annaway, had been a merciless 
pilgrimage, and now, with the swiftness of the end of a 
cinematograph scene, her happiness had ceased. She 
had loved him with a passion of gratitude, for, in his 
Jovian way, he had been very kind to her. Conscious 
brutality to any human being—or to dog or mouse, for 
the matter of that—was alien to the nature of John 
Annaway, always in his own estimation, the gentlest 
and most generous of men. He was proud of Caroline 
to whom, as he openly declared, he owed a hitherto un- 
dreamed-of weird and wonderful thing called a balance 
at his bank, due mainly to a decrease of seventy-five 
per cent in his whisky bill. She had lured him by her 
devotion and a certain feminine charm, not without 
daintiness, into the path of comparative sobriety. 
Never had he done such good work, never had he talked 
so brilliantly, as during the past two years. He had 
entered on a new lease of life physical, intellectual and 
moral, when, all of a sudden, without a moment’s warn- 
ing, he slipped from his chair at the dinner-table an un- 
conscious, and, in a few minutes, a dead man. 

All this did Perella gather from the distracted lady’s 
incoherent talk during the first hour of their meeting. 

137 


138 PERELLA 


“Tf I’ve kept you out of your home all this time, my 
dear, forgive me. But it wasn’t my fault, how could 
I help it?” 

Perella put her arm around the helpless shoulders. 

“Don’t talk like that. You did wonders for him that 
I could never have done. It was horrible of me to stay 
away from him so long, but I was abroad—drifting 
about—and, when one drifts, time passes without one 
knowing it.” 

The other nodded. She, too, had drifted... . 
Presently she raised her head. 

“They’re coming soon—nine o’clock—to—— I 
asked them to wait till the last moment in case 


you...” She motioned to the next room. ‘“He’s 
there.” 

She broke into a passion of tears. Perella took her 
by the arm. 


“Come with me, dear,” she said. 


Grey Fanshawe, the editor of one of John Anna- 
way’s papers, and a friend more or less intimate, had 
undertaken the dismal arrangements. He had inserted 
a notice in the Times with date and hour of the funeral 
which was to take place the next day. A few wreaths 
had been already sent. Among them Perella found one 
with Silvester Gayton’s card bearing two addresses— 
that of the Viale Milton and The Atheneum. The 
sight of it gave her a queer little thrill of consolation. 
It was a friend’s hand stretched out in comfort across 
the body of the erring but ever beloved being that was 
her father. The other wreaths came from strangers, 
journalist colleagues. Even Grey Fanshawe she but 
dimly remembered. 

When they left the best bedroom where the coffin lay, 
Caroline said: 


SILVESTER 1389 


“You must be broken up with tiredness. There’ll be 
some dinner in a munute or two. But first, you’d like 
to go to your room and have a wash?” 

“My room?” 

“T’ve kept it for you all the time, dearie, in case you 
should ever have wanted to come back. I’ve never slept 
in it—and it’s all ready.” 

“But you ?” queried Perella, knowing that there 
were only two bedrooms in the flat. “What have you 
done—since——?” 

“Y’ve lain down on the couch in the library. What 
were you thinking of doimg to-night?” she asked nerv- 
ously. 

Perella was vague. Her little trunk was downstairs 
in charge of the porter. She had wired to a Chelsea 
friend, Maggie Mills, asking for a shake-down in her 
studio. 

“But you'll stay here, won’t you?” 

“Of course,” said Perella, with a catch in her voice, 
for Caroline stood piteous. “But I never thought 
there’d be room for me.” 

Desperately tired and aching in head and limb, after 
the long second-class journey from Florence, and dazed 
by grief and a new and confused emotion, she could not, 
however, be unconscious of a change in the once ram- 
shackle flat. The little drawing-room was neat with 
dainty chintz and curtains, and the furniture shone 
with polish. Her own little room was a miracle of 
freshness. ‘The bath-room, once a den squalid in dis- 
repair and dingy toilette appurtenances, where the only 
thing clean was the water, gleamed in spotless elegance. 
The brown stains from dripping taps had gone. There 
were towels without holes in them. There was an en- 
ticing wooden bowl of soap, with a nice yellow brush 
on a bright wire bridge, and beside it, stead of the 





140 PERELLA 


well-remembered dark brown thing which, if improperly 
held, dangled a foot long, were* two crisp, daffodil- 
coloured spongy sponges. There was a crystal vase of 
bath salts. . . . Instead of the uncertainly attired and 
dilapidated domestic of her youth, there came in at- 
tendance the neatest of maids in white cap and apron. 
All was full of memories, yet almost intolerably un- 
familiar. She missed a smell. Yet there was a smell. 
It took her exhausted mind time to realize that the old 
frowstiness of dirt had given place to the fragrance of 
cleanliness. She saw in the general ambience a sym- 
bol of Caroline’s saving grace, of the sweeeter life her 
father had lived under this woman’s influence. 

A decent supper was served, vastly different from the 
sketchy, sloppy meals of long ago. 

She said once: ‘You must have been very good to 
my father.” 

Soon afterwards she went to bed, less a woman than 
an ache incarnate, and slept till morning. 

In Florence, between receipt of the telegram and the 
departure of the first train north, she had bought a — 
ready-made black frock. In the morning she put it 
on, and appeared in the sitting-room, very pale and 
insignificant. ... 

Fanshawe came, a worried, lined, middle-aged man, 
and took charge of things. ‘Two or three more wreaths 
arrived—one from “A club of Good Fellows.” It took 
Perella some time to realize a delicacy in the avoidance 
of mention of the club’s disreputable name. There was 
only one mourning carriage following the hearse, and 
in it sat Caroline and Perella and Fanshawe. ‘The 
plodding journey to Fulham Cemetery seemed inter- 
minable. Caroline wept silently, incapable of conver- 
sation. She was dressed in black, but not in widow’s 
weeds. Perella wished she had worn them, entitled 


SILVESTER 141 


thereto by devoted wifehood. And who would have 
known? Perella’s heart yearned towards Caroline. 
Yet such things could not be touched upon. Fanshawe 
sitting on the back seat spoke to Perella drily of her 
father’s position in the journalistic world. He was 
just coming belatedly into his own when ironical fate 
checked his career. Then he talked disconnectedly of 
Florence and pictures, and, as they passed Fulham 
Palace, having crossed the bridge, he wondered how 
bishops, taxed like ordinary mortals and with the pur- 
chasing value of the pound sterling about five shillings, 
could manage to keep out of the bankruptcy court. 
Perella looked out of window and derived a melancholy 
pleasure from the occasional uncovering of heads as the 
poor little procession passed on. Im a foolish way she 
took it as a tribute to her father. 

About half a dozen men, with here and there a wife 
and a daughter, were assembled in the bleak mortuary 
chapel. She went up the aisle with her two companions 
and sat in a front pew, while the coffin was carried in by 
the bearers, the weary surpliced chaplain waiting to be- 
gin the service. It was only half-way through the chap- 
ter of Corinthians that she glanced aside, and there 
across the aisle she saw Silvester Gayton, small, bald- 
headed, elderly boy, sitting back with the fingertips of 
his black-gloved hands joined together. She caught 
his eye. They exchanged a glance. Tears came. 
It was wondrously kind of him to pay this tribute. 

Only when the dreadful ceremony was over, and the 
few unknown friends had scattered away from the 
graveside, after formal expressions of condolence, did he 
come up to her with words of sincere but hesitating 
sympathy. He shook hands with Fanshawe, whom he 
knew. Caroline stood apart. Perella took her by the 
elbow. 


142 PERELLA 


“Caroline, this is my dear father’s friend, Professor 
Gayton—Mrs. Annaway.” 

In the noontide September sun the myriad tomb- 
stones flashed white and unearthly. The carefully 
tended paths presented a decorum of despair. Up one 
of them after formal leave-taking, the back of the white- 
surpliced chaplain was visible, hurrying either for lunch 
or another dreary burial service. Behind the little 
group of four, the grave-diggers were already busily 
shovelling in the soil. 

In response to the introduction, Silvester said: 

“The world’s loss is great, but yours is infinitely 
greater. If I can be of any service to you, please let 
me know.” 

Caroline looked at him for a timid moment as he 
stood before her, in a little old-fashioned attitude, all 
courtesy and commiseration. 

“You are very kind. John often spoke of you, and 
Perella, last evening, when she found your beautiful 
flowers. But you must know I’ve no right to be called 
Mrs. Annaway.” 

He stuck his silk hat on the back of his head, so that 
he could reach out both black-gloved hands to the lost 
lady. 

“What does it matter if you are that to Perella, to 
say nothing of Fanshawe and myself?” 

They wandered away towards the main path where 
the funeral coach awaited the three chief mourners, 
Silvester Gayton and the widow behind the others. 

“We might have been married,” said Caroline. 
“There was no particular reason against it. But we 
were so happy as we were that it seemed a shame to 
spoil things.” 

- “T don’t venture to breathe a word of blame,” said 
Gayton in his kindly, precise way, “but don’t you think 


b] 


SILVESTER 143 


marriage might have regularized the situation?” 

She shrugged despondent shoulders. “He offered, 
of course. ButI wouldn’t. My fault. I felt I could 
keep him better as we were. The word you used— 
‘regular’—was as a red rag to a bull to him. Getting 
his copy in by a certain hour drove him mad. If he 
could have had leisure to write, he would have been 
famous. . . . He hated to feel bound. I loved him 
too much to make him feel bound. Besides, who was 
I to bind him? There—you have it all....I 
don’t know why I should tell you this—except 
that you’ve been”—she choked a sob—‘so sweet to 
“me.” 

They walked a few steps in silence. Presently he 
touched her arm. 

“My dear,” said he, “I like honest people.” 

They reached the waiting vehicles, the family 
mourning-coach and Silvester Gayton’s taxicab. 

“T can take one,” said Silvester. 

There was a friendly discussion. In any case Fan- 
shawe must go back to the house. He had the wiil in 
his pocket. He had induced Annaway to make it about 
a year ago. A very simple affair. . . . What it came 
to was that everything was equally divided between 
Mrs. Annaway and Perella. But, as these things were 
best done in decency and in order, perhaps Gayton 
would not mind being present for five minutes while he 
read it, before putting it into a solicitor’s hands. 
Whereupon Silvester drove off with Perella, and the 
other two followed. 

“Tf I could only tell you how grateful I am,’ 
Perella. 

“Nothing at all to be grateful for, nothing at all. 
Did you get my wire?” 

SN 9,” 


> said 


144 PERELLA 


“You must have left Florence, of course. ... But 
it might have been forwarded.” 

And then the thought hit her like a hammer that, 
what with the shock of the news and her telegram to 
Anthony and the fluster over arranging the train- 
journey and getting a black dress and hat and stock- 
ings, and selecting and packing half her belongings and 
worrying Madame Toselli for change so that she could 
tip the earnest Giuseppe, she had forgotten to leave be- 
hind her a London address. All this, while thinking 
of Anthony, she told the sympathetic Gayton with an 
air of apologetic remorse. He patted her hand. 
What did it matter? Presently he questioned her, with 
some concern, about her prospects. What was she 
thinking of doing? 

“T’ll carry on just as usual.” 

“But this must make some difference to you—in spite 
of your little inheritance.” 

She smiled and explained ingenuously that, apart 
from her tiny private income, she had been earning her 
own living for the past three or four years. Her dear 
father couldn’t afford to keep a prodigal daughter and 
a house of his own. He tugged at his little moustache 
and looked gravely out of window; then turned and 
said: 

“IT never guessed you were such a valiant little 
lady.” | 

She flushed, for the Professor was not a man of vain 
words. 

‘“‘When everybody’s kind to me and gives me work, 
I don’t see there’s much to be brave about.” 

**Ah—but when everybody isn’t?” said Silvester. 

“T don’t think that’ll ever happen,” she replied, with 
a dream in her eyes. 

“But if it does, my dear, if it ever should,” he said 


SILVESTER 145 


in his diffident way, “do remember you’ve always got at 
least one friend.” 

She half turned, and laid light fingers on his knee. 

“After to-day I should be an ungrateful little wretch 
if I ever forgot.” 

“Then that’s all right, a contract made,” said he 
hastily, like any undergraduate or subaltern betrayed 
into a shameful path of sentiment. 

He made abrupt change. 

“Do you like copying?” 

“Oh, yes!” 

“Why p> 

She meditated for a moment or two, and then an- 
swered: 

“Don’t you think it’s rather wonderful to live for 
weeks in the reflection of a great soul, and to try to get 
at his spiritual message, and when you step back and 
look at what you’ve done, to try to guess what he would 
think of it? I know what I say must seem very silly 
to you, Professor,” she added, after a pause, “but I 
do really feel something like that.” 

He nodded. ‘That’s more or less how I feel when I 
look at masterpieces. WhatI should feelif I could copy 
them, like you, I don’t know. I tried to be a painter 
once, but it was no good. I can only see pictures and 
tell people what I see. Good Lord! Here we are.” 

The taxi drew up before the Battersea Mansions. 
They mounted to the flat. The maid had set out, 
daintily, a modest meal in the one sitting-room—a cold 
tongue and salad and cold fruit-pie. Funeral baked 
meats may be deprecated as cynical, but the poor hu- 
man system, after the strain of burial rites, instinctively 
craves sustenance. Perella cast a hungry glance at 
the table, pleasantly anticipating satisfaction. She 
pointed, hospitably : 


146 PERELLA 


“Tf you will stay to lunch, Professor . . . it’s one 
o’clock. 

near: price said he, pulling out his watch. ‘So it 
is. . . . You’re very kind. But—er—Mrs. Annaway 
—i aoe want to intrude. . . .” 

“You can’t help knowing,” said Perella, with a thrill 
of audacity, “what a comfort and support to her it 
would be if you stayed.” 

He pulled off his black gloves, and stuffed them into 
the tails of his morning-coat. 

“You’ve got a funny way of picking the best bits out 
of the back of people’s minds. Of course I'll stay, my 
dear child. . . . Of course.” 

Intuitively knowing that all traces of Caroline’s 
nocturnal occupation would be swept away, she said: 

“Come into my father’s study.” 

It was the first time that she had entered, since her 
arrival, the once nightmare room of slovenly untidiness. 
She beheld a miracle of order. It was a fair-sized room, 
the originally projected dining-room of the flat. The 
same remembered deal book-cases lined it, but instead 
of the old dusty, higgledy-piggledy disarray of books, 
there reigned the decorum of a classified library. The 
leather arm-chair whose seat, from her childhood’s days, 
had ever shown grey stuffing and a glint of steel spring, 
when it was not heaped with newspapers and periodicals 
and dog’s-eared manuscript, now gleamed free in the 
freshness of new upholstery. ‘The long Cromwellian 
table at which he always worked, once a scandalous 
foot-high horror of papers and pipes and dirty gloves, 
booksellers’ catalogues, cigar-ash, unanswered letters, 
bills—mountains of them—all surmounted by a drunk- 
enly inclined empty tumbler or two smelling villain- 
ously of whisky, the end of a forgotten sock suspender 
dangling in the midst of the mass, and a filthily blotted 


SILVESTER 14:7 


pad reserving the only space at which a man could put 
paper to write, now displayed the stern and coquettish 
order of the desk of a Cabinet Minister, supervised by 
his official private secretary. 

Here, too, was seen the masterful hand of Caroline. 
Gayton’s bookish man’s instinct took him round the 
shelves. They were mainly filled with review copies of 
books of every kind of subject. One or two he took 
from their places and glanced through. Perella said 
shyly: 

“I wonder if you would like to have any little thing 
of his as a memento?” 

Thus invited, he cast a courteous glance around, 
touched a discoloured ivory paper-knife, and smiled. 

*’This looks like an old friend.” 

She put it into his hand. 

“Perhaps the oldest thing of his I can remember. 
He told me I cut my teeth on it.” 

“But ” he began to protest. 

*“No——” she interrupted, and looked at him. 

He yielded. “It’ll be all the more precious to me, 
my dear,” said he, with a little formal bow. 

The more slowly driven pair arrived. They sat 
down to lunch. The talk, led by Fanshawe into 
channels of contemporary art and literature, lay 
mainly between the two men. The meal over, Fan- 
shawe drew the will from his pocket, and, putting 
on a pair of tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles, read it 
aloud. 

The testator bequeathed the contents of the library 
and the spare bedroom, as they should stand at the time 
of his death, to his daughter, Perella; the remainder of 
the contents of the flat to Caroline Langton, his devoted 
companion. ‘The residue of his estate, after necessary 
deductions made, to be divided equally between the 





148 PERELLA 


two women. Fanshawe was appointed sole executor. 

Perella broke the inevitable awkward silence that 
followed. 

“Was that your idea, Mr. Fanshawe, or my 
father’s?” 

“We hammered it out together, Miss Annaway,” he 
replied, rather coldly. “It was not very easy to make 
aman of your father’s temperament sit down and do a 
thing like this.’ He tapped the paper. “Knowing 
his circumstances I thought I was acting for the best.” 

“I’m sure you were,” cried Perella. ‘But don’t you 
see, it’s awfully unfair?” 

Three startled and pained people looked at the tiny 
figure standing erect in the midst of them. 

“In what way?” asked Fanshawe. 

She flashed round on him. 

“Why should I have any of the furniture? I left the 
flat a perfect pig-stye. My fault. She has turned it 
into a place of beauty—look at 1t—and she made my 
dear father very happy—and I don’t care for wills or 
lawyers or law or anything a all hers, and ’m not 
going to take it away from her.” 

Then, of course, the silly woman, Caroline, began to 
cry through sheer reaction, and Perella went over to 
comfort her. Whereupon the two men retired to the 
library in order to talk common-sense. 

“‘Of course she can do what she likes when probate is 
granted,” said Fanshawe. “A deed of gift to regular- 
ize matters. But the young lady is somewhat quixotic 
and absurd.” 

“JT think she’s a splendid little girl,” said Gayton, 
lighting a cigarette. “I wouldn’t check her splendid- 
ness for anything in the world.” 

The worried Fanshawe shrugged his shoulders and 
replied: 


SILVESTER 149 


“T’ve only seen her once before, when she was a 
child.” 

“‘Ah—well—yes,” said Gayton. “But, perhaps she 
has grown since then.” 

Like Pilate, Fanshawe washed his hands. Anyhow, 
it was none of his business. The whole affair was an 
infernal nuisance. The greatest curse of civilization 
was the parasitic growth of altruism on a man’s self- 
consciousness. Primitive man didn’t care an auroch’s 
tooth for his neighbour’s womankind—unless he wanted 
to haul them by the hair of their heads into his own 
cave. From such an idea he, Fanshawe, a married man 
with eight girl children, shrank with the repugnance of 
satiety. Why the devil should he have worried about 
these women? For years Annaway, sodden with drink, 
had been as difficult to catch as a will-o’-the-wisp over 
a swamp; but, of course, when fastened down, could 
do things like nobody else; and he had turned his edi- 
torial hair prematurely grey, and he had wished the 
fellow comfortably dead and done with; then, lo and 
behold! there had come a change, and the said fellow 
gave him no trouble at all, and was more brilliant than 
ever, so that he, idiot that he was, began to take an 
interest in him as a human being, to be followed by this 
dreadful and inescapable nemesis of altruism. 

““Now that you’ve got all that off your chest, my dear 
Fanshawe,” said Silvester Gayton in his precise and 
pedantic accents, “don’t you think you might laugh, by 
way of reaction?” 

And Fanshawe laughed. | 

“TI suppose we’re all damned fools without knowing 
why.” 

“And perhaps, my dear fellow,” said Gayton, “the 
damneder fools we are, the greater is our state of 
grace.” 


150 PERELLA 


“Grace be hanged,” said Fanshawe. “All I want is 
bread and butter for an idiotically miscreated family.” 
He pulled out his watch. “Good God!” he cried. 
‘’The owner’s coming on board at three, and I’ve barely 
time to meet him at the top of the gangway steps. 
Hell! what a life! This poor thing thinks himself God 
—he’s obese enough for a Burmese deity—and expects 
us all—me, the editor of the Daily Millionograph, to 
bow down and worship him, and, my dear Gayton, he’s 
the most disastrous, colossal ass stuffed with straw and 
wind that your beastly sentimental altruistic world has 
ever seen. But I’ve got to secure bread and butter 
for my horrid brood. Good-bye, my friend. Con- 
tinue your beautiful life on the peaks of philosophic 
celibacy, and don’t care a damn about anybody or any- 
thing. If only I can find a taxi!” 

He dashed, Gayton following, into the sitting-room, 
where the two young women sat, more or less sedate and 
composed, and took hurried leave. 

**How little we know one another,” said Gayton, after 
the flat door had slammed behind him. “I should never 
have suspected such vehemence from our melancholy 
editor.” 

“Tf he wasn’t vehement—really—hbeneath the sur- 
face—why should he have done all this for us?” asked 
Perella. 

“TY believe human beings are capable of anything 
good when they’re put to it,” he said. 

Well, there was the end of the funeral and the baked 
meats and the ceremony. Gayton went off on his own 
affairs. He was due in the Viale Milton at the end of 
the week. Perella must let him know when she re- 
turned to Florence. In the meantime, The Atheneum 
would always find him. He shook hands, and bowed in 


SILVESTER 151 


an old-fashioned formal fashion. To Perella, who 
showed him to the flat door, he said: 

“Courage, my dear, courage. Always courage.” 

During the next day or two the two women sat on a 
committee of Ways and Means. Fanshawe, by letter, 
reported no debts save for current modest weekly bills, 
and assets to the amount of about two thousand pounds 
cash balance at the bank. This vast fortune took 
Perella’s breath away. She remembered the time when 
horrid people used to stand at the door and, in malev- 
olently chosen language, vainly demand instant pay- 
ment. 

“But how can it be?” she asked Caroline. 

“IT suppose I persuaded him to earn more and spend 
less.” 

“You were his Guardian Angel.” 

“And yet I couldn’t stop him going off like that— 
at fifty,” said Caroline mournfully. 

The immediate future gradually pieced itself out like 
the pattern of a puzzle. Caroline, with fresh capital, 
would return to the Chelsea light-luncheon and tea-shop 
which she had been running with another woman, and 
in which she had sold her share when Annaway had 
caught her up, eagle-wise, to his Battersea eyrie. The 
business was paying satisfactorily. Her ex-partner, 
Miss Pritchard, a genius in her way, had made the place 
famous for CHufs Chicago, always served on a plate, 
with dainty finger-napkin and roll and butter, the 
said dish being presented in a two-handled bouillon cup, 
consisting of a raw egg beaten up with brandy and a 
few other esoteric and alcoholic subtleties. Perella, un- 
trained in abstract laws of morality, thought it a 
splendid idea. How often had she craved a little pick- 
me-up after a hard morning’s work, and not known how 


152 PERELLA 


to get it! On the other hand, she was vaguely aware 
of licensing laws. Was there no danger? Caroline 
declared that the excise people hadn’t a leg to stand 
on. If they were free to provide sole aw vin blanc, or 
brandy butter for Christmas pudding—an incontest- 
able proposition—why should a flavouring of brandy be 
prohibited with raw eggs? 

Perella’s admiration of Caroline swelled daily. She 
learned her artless history. She came from Bilston, 
unattractive town, where her father was a Don Juan- 
esque clerk in a factory, and her mother, the acid 
daughter of a Wesleyan minister who lived under the 
right or wrong impression that she had married be- 
neath her. Caroline had escaped from an unhappy 
household to join the chorus ranks of a touring musical 
comedy company. Cast jetsam in London, a girl with 
a certain beauty of face and figure, she had become an 
artist’s model. Her parents, finding common ground 
for renunciation of actress daughter in Bilston Non- 
conformist respectability, renounced her. She had her 
adventures, like any other, including marriage with a 
man—a so-called financier met in a sculptor’s studio— 
who beat her and left her stranded and disappeared for 
ever into eternity. Possibly he might have been killed 
in the war. She didn’t know. Then there was a seri- 
ous liaison for a few years with a man who really was 
killed and left her the little money which she had in- 
vested in the Pritchard tea-shop. And then came 
Annaway, the real love of her life. 

“T suppose the good folks of Bilston are right in call- 
ing me an immoral woman,” she said, “but things have 
been against me and I’ve done my best. I don’t think 
I’ve done wilful harm to any human being.” 

“You’re a very brave dear,” said Perella. “And if 
yow’re not able to keep on the flat I’ll be heart-broken.” 


SILVESTER 153 


Telegrams—her lean purse quivered at the expense 
—to Florence and Hungary brought the Professor’s 
message of condolence, a vague telegraphic reply from 
Anthony, and, two days later, a letter. 

She sat, one soft September morning, on a bench in 
Battersea Park reading the letter over and over again. 
The leaves were yellowing, and already some had 
splashed drearily on the gravelled path. The orna- 
mental water in front of her was colourless—as colour- 
less as her life without Anthony. For the first time 
she doubted him, his love and his constancy. 

“Perella mia,” he wrote, “you flit like a pale little 
ghost from Florence to haunts in England unknown to 
me. I’ve been waiting for days to learn where a mes- 
sage of sympathy would reach you. The Pension 
Toselli would have been a vain address, for we know the 
fly-blown letters in that dreadful rack in the corridor. 
My dearest, I grieve with you. I know how you, in 
your romantic great little soul, loved your father. I 
wish I could come and sit by you, your dear hand in 
mine, and comfort you in your sorrow. But a web of 
affairs from which I can’t escape holds me here far 
longer than I had anticipated. I'll be in London in a 
month’s time. I wonder if you could wait for 
Wie ia 

And so forth, and so on, and ainsi de suite, etcetera, 
etcetera. 

First America, then Dinard, then Hungary, and now 
this indefinite date in England... . 

Her heart was so cold that it hurt physically, and 
she put her hand toit. She stared hopelessly across the 
water, conscious of little else but a shrinking of body 
and soul into an imponderable speck of agony. 

Should she cling to the forlorn hope and wait for 
him? 


154 PERELLA 


A man sat down at the other end of the bench. He 
was gaunt, unshaven, and clad in lamentable garments. 
She glanced at him out of the tail of her eye. He bore 
a curious resemblance to a dilapidated and disreputable 
Fanshawe. He pulled out of his pocket a copy of the 
Daily Herald and began to read it, with a deep pucker- 
ing of the brows. | 

Presently a nursemaid and a chubby child came up 
and paused on the water’s brink to feed a couple of 
Muscovy ducks that swam near the edge. The nurse’s 
casts of bread reached the ducks whose gobblings gave 
the child great amusement. But the child’s cast of a 
considerable hunk fell on the strip of grass screened 
from the path by low wire netting. The careless nurse 
led the child away. 

Perella folded up her letter and stuffed it in her bag. 
Should she wait for him? Tears started afresh from 
eyes that already had wept, and impatiently she 
wiped them away with a rag of a handkerchief. She 
swallowed lumps and rose and walked away. After 
about fifty yards she discovered that she had left the 
handkerchief on the bench. It was a good handker- 
chief with a bit of lace on it—worth retrieval. She 
began to retrace her steps, when she saw the man that 
had been her neighbour rise and pick up the piece of 
bread miscast by the child and put it in his pocket. 

She turned and fled. The handkerchief did not mat- 
ter. The act in itself was poignant with horror. If 
the man spied discovery he would die of shame. . . . 
Instinctive womanhood suggested a ghastly moral. 
She saw herself waiting, waiting for the crust of love 
thrown carelessly by Anthony, and pouncing upon it 
like a thing starved. Her pride rose in a torture of 
revolt. No. She would not wait. She would return 
to Florence. If he loved her, he would seek her there. 


CHAPTER X 


In late October, Perella drifted to Venice. Her 
Argentine patron, having found that his Renaissance 
Palace would be incomplete without a Giovanni Bellini, 
had (not without taste and judgment) selected one of 
the smaller Madonnas in the Accadémia di Belle Arti. 
His agent, the Florentine dealer, had offered her the 
commission, and Silvester Gayton, whom she consulted, 
had counselled acceptance. Madame Toselli, to whose 
care she would return after her business in Venice, se- 
cured for her a room in a friendly and_ inter- 
recommending Pension on the Zattere; which was very 
convenient, since, as all the world knows, the Accadémia 
is on the Santa Maria della Salute side of the Grand 
Canal, and less than a quarter of a mile from the Zat- 
tere, and the Pension Polonia. 

She loved her work. She adored the blue-hooded 
Madonna of the soft, loving mouth and downcast eyes, 
and hands clasping the body of the Child with the 
dark golden curls, and the fascinating folds of baby 
flesh around His throat. She saw in the picture 
motherhood in its most perfect and exquisite flower. 
Never henceforth, she felt, could she thus surrender 
her soul to a Raphael for all its unreachable impeccahil- 
ity. She drenched herself in the Bellini, the nepenthe 
of consolation. 

Not that Venice, unique of cities, failed to make its 
appeal. The artist in her reacted instinctively to its 
waterways and sunsets and the black, high-prowed gon- 
dolas of which she had dreamed since her fanciful child- 


hood amid the chimney-pots. She could stand on the 
155 


156 PERELLA 


Ponte di Belle Arti before twilight and let the aching 
sense of beauty grip her heart until she could almost 
gasp with the pain of it. But the pain was too poig- 
nant, seeing that she was alone. There was no arm to 
clutch in compensation for caught breath; no ear into 
which to murmur inarticulate wonder ; no eyes in which, 
looking up, she could see the thrilling reflection of her 
emotions; there was no response that would translate 
the ache into rapture. Often she shut her eyes and 
fled, hurt, wounded by the beauty that was incommuni- 
cable. She dreaded the hours when she was cut off 
from the companionship of her adored Madonna. 

Yet was she driven forth into Venice. 'The Pension 
Polonia was but the Pension Toselli transferred from 
the banks of the Arno to those of the Canal of the 
Zattere. She found the same Anglo-American types, 
the same spaghetti and stringy veal, the same pallid 
Giuseppe, the same uninspiring and familiar smell. 
There lodged in the pension even a young man from 
Cook’s, who was thrilled by the coincidence of her ac- 
quaintance with his Florentine colleague. : 

One Sunday afternoon he took her for a couple of 
hours in a gondola through the unknown marvels of 
the little canals—hitherto her water trips had been con- 
_ fined to those that could be thriftily made by steamer or 
motor-launch—and she saw many churches and palaces, 
and wandered into tiny piazzettas, with a masterpiece 
of a well-head in the middle, where for centuries the 
world had stood quite still. She enjoyed the sensuous 
restfulness of the gliding through the sluggish water, 
and the anticipation of what of beauty the next turn 
of a corner would reveal. But, towards the end of the 
jaunt, the foolish youth, who, up to then, had been an 
intelligent and amiable companion, began to make in- 
discreet love to her. And that spoiled a dreamy after- 


SILVESTER 157 


noon of oblivion. He was an honest English young 
man. ‘There was nothing Don Juanesque about his 
sudden wooing. Perella, in her miniature way, was 
physically attractive, and she had a bright wit and— 
perhaps her father’s only educative gift—the sense of 
epigrammatic phrase. The young man—small blame 
to him, and yet, the pity of it!—lost his head. Per- 
ella found instant means of retrieving it, and stuck it 
back firmly on reluctant shoulders. 

Perhaps there is a deal of philosophy in the old tag: 


“°Tis not so much the lover who woos, 
As the lover’s way of wooing.” 


The way of the young man from Cook’s was a million 
miles from that of Anthony Blake. He played the 
devil’s own discord on every nerve suddenly strung 
tight, in Perella’s little body. A pale and angry girl, 
and a sulky, rueful young man landed at the steps on 
the Zattere, and parted on the landing of the Pension 
Polonia after the most perfunctory salutations. 

Thenceforward, she took her Venice in solitude. It 
was better so. Alone, she could transpose its beauty 
into a minor key, so that her young soul could sing its 
sad accompaniment. For, into terms of lament must 
she translate all things for her own consolation. 

Anthony had gone from her for ever. She read the 
truth behind his letters spaced out tactfully at longer 
and longer intervals. He deplored, not ungenerously, 
as one seizing an occasion of quarrel, her departure 
from London before he could arrive, but despairingly, 
with the air of one helpless before the buffetings of Fate. 
Destiny’s iron hand had guided his movements. In 
London he was on the point of taking aéroplane, the 
lightning’s back, any means of instantaneous travel, so 


158 PERELLA 


as to pass a day or two with her in Florence, when his 
brother-in-law, the Major-General, Gloria’s husband, 
was carried off to an operating-table, and for a week 
lay between life and death, during which interval, 
Gloria, at madness-point, had detained him by her side. 
Perella apart, Gloria was the only being in the world 
he loved. Perella, with her magical sympathy would 
understand. His only free time was thus taken up. 
He could not once again cancel his passage to New 
York, and the American engagements made for him by 
the kindest of friends. 

He had gone to America. And the last time she had 
seen him was at the Florence railway station on that 
stifling morning in July. She knew that she would 
never see him again. The New York Herald, with its 
deadly chronicle of the movements of prominent Ameri- 
cans, and also the English illustrated weeklies, on fly- 
blown back numbers of which she would pathetically 
pounce, supplied her with much news omitted from 
Anthony’s letters. She saw him mentioned by name— 
twice snap-shotted—in a world into which she could 
never dream of entering, the world of which Doney’s 
in Florence, filled with women, all furs and pearls and 
violets, was still the symbol. ‘There was one snapshot 
showing him bending forward, tennis racket in hand, 
with his heart-rendingly familiar grace, in conversation 
with two ladies, the Duchesse de Montfaucon and Mrs. 
Ellison. He belonged to their sphere. The fact, pro- 
claimed by the vulgar reproduction, jumped to the eyes. 
. . . From the list of arrivals at the Ritz Hotel in 
Paris, she picked out the names of Mrs. Ellison and 
Mr. Anthony Blake. Anthony had made no mention 
of the lady in his letter from Paris. Again she read 
that, in London, Mrs. Ellison had given a luncheon 
party; and, among the guests—kings, queens, princes, 


SILVESTER 159 


dukes, duchesses, Prime Ministers, ambassadors—the 
list dazzled her poor little eyes—she saw the name of 
Anthony. Finally, paragraphs, almost juxtaposed, to 
the effect that Mr. Anthony Blake, the distinguished 
young English artist, was sailing on Thursday by the 
Homeric, and that by the Homeric were returning to 
America, for the autumn, Mr. Cornelius Adams and 
Mrs. Ellison, the popular hostess of Florence and Di- 
nard. He had never mentioned the fact that he would 
be fellow-passenger with Mrs. Ellison. 

If she was jealous, it was not of the woman, for often 
in Florence Anthony had anticipated such a possibility 
by assuring her that the lady was old enough to be his 
mother: indeed, in his account of their first meeting in 
Doney’s, on his famously victorious pursuit of cock- 
tails, he had characterized her as quite old. The vil- 
lainous photograph, too, intensively inspected, showed 
her a woman attractive only by the magic of expensive 
clothes. And there was a daughter of twenty in Min- 
nesota, for whom, as Anthony had frankly said, he had 
made the second portrait of Mrs. Ellison. In spite 
of Perella’s queer knowledge of the world and its ways 
—for, in her Bohemian waif’s upbringing and subse- 
quent career, what veils, protective from life, had been 
cast over maiden eyes?—she never suspected the possi- 
bility of sentimental relations between Anthony and his 
patroness. ‘To her, Beatrice Ellison was but a symbol 
of the ineluctable forces that had carried off Anthony 
—from the plane to which he had descended to meet 
her—back to the plane on which he had been born and 
was ordained to have his being. 

As far as she could hate, she hated the woman. It 
was all her doing. She pictured her as a remorseless 
fairy godmother who had plucked a reluctant prince 
from the goatherd’s hut, regardless of his possible 


160 PERELLA 


feelings for the goatherd’s daughter, in order to set 
him on the throne where he should be. 

Thus, perhaps, in her hours of humiliation and for- 
giveness, did Perella envisage the fading of her happi- 
ness. But there were hours also when her heart was 
near to breaking, and she sobbed in helpless misery, 
remembering the tones of voice that had stirred her 
fibres, kisses and clutches of body that she had held 
sacred, and the first smell of the rough tweed overcoat 
under her nose. And then, again, her pride would re- 
volt, and she would spring up, and dip her towel in 
the inadequate ewer, and fiercely sluice away the 
traces of tears, and steel herself to the confrontation of 
life. 

That she inherited, indeed, from her father—the lust 
of life. No matter how small a speck she was on the 
world’s surface, she was conscious—now, curiously 
enough, after all this intolerable pain, more vehemently 
than ever—of her own intense and vibrating personal- 
ity. Nothing lay further from her philosophy than 
the attitude of the poor soul that sat sighing by a syca- 
more tree and sang rubbish all about a green willow. 
The said poor soul obviously hadn’t to earn her own liv- 
ing; still less at such a fascinating trade as hers. She 
had neither sense of personal dignity nor of duty to- 
wards the world at large. In a vague, semi-religious 
way, Perella was conscious of that sense of duty. If 
she, no matter how insignificant, was not set in the world 
for some purpose, what was the good of living at all? 
So pride and stalwartness of faith saved her from break- 
down. She threw her heart into her picture and sought 
to project her soul into that of Bellini while he thought 
he was painting the Mother of God. 

One day, when she had nearly finished her task and 


SILVESTER 161 


was standing away from her easel with bent brows, her 
earnest gaze travelling backwards and forwards from 
original to copy, and from copy to original, a familiar 
voice sounded in her ear: 

“Splendid, my dear; splendid.” 

She turned swiftly, and saw the kind eyes of Silvester 
Gayton smiling at her through the thick lenses of 
his pince-nez. He had bowler hat in hand, and one 
grey suede glove on and the right-hand one off. The 
fact of this elderly but angelic friend dropping down 
suddenly from heaven into her environment nearly 
brought tears of gladness to her eyes. 

“You, Professor! How extraordinary!” 

“Not so very.” He stuck his hat on the back of his 
head. “I received an urgent summons from Venice 
from Professor Brabiani. You know—the famous 
Brabiani—friend of Ruskin and the Brownings. 
Wrote to say he’s dying, poor old man. So I packed 
up at once and arrived last evening.” 

“But how extraordinary you should find me here, 
at once.” 

“Not at all,” said he. “I knew the exact spot where 
you would be likely to be, and came to look for you.” 

She put her hand on her bosom. “You came to 
look for me?” 

Her little air of puzzlement, and her ingenuous 
accentuation of the last word made him laugh. 

“Why not, my dear? Don’t you think you’re worth 
looking for?” 

She gave an instinctive tidying touch to her hair, 
and said with a sigh: 

“You’re always too kind to me.” She moved aside, 
with a tiny gesture of invitation. 

“Do you really think it’s anything like?” 


be, eae 7X am 


x Sony 


162 PERELLA 


“T don’t call a thing splendid when it isn’t. I’ve 
got a reputation to keep up.” 

“Yes,” she argued.. “But my father used to say 
that adjectives can be used positively, comparatively, 
and superlatively. That was when people used to ac- 
cuse him of slinging his tremendous words about. . . .” 

She stopped, rather scared at her temerity. 

“Well? . .. goon.” He regarded her amusedly. 

“Well, you might have used the word comparatively. 


» Splendid for a beginner. Splendid as an effort. You 


see what I mean?” 

“A professional critic has to use words positively. 
If he doesn’t he gets into a devil of a mess. Perhaps 
in deference to your modesty I’ll modify the word.” 

He put his gloved left hand on her left shoulder, and 
looked over the right. “It’s jolly good. Really, jolly 
good. 'There!” 

“I’m so glad. But,” she sighed, “that wonder- 
ful tone. I should never get it if I lived a hundred 
years.” 

“Do you think John Bellini got it, or any of these 
old humbugs? It’s their partner, Time, that has done 
the trick for them—and not a hundred years but four 
hundred. If you want to see what Claude Lorrain 
really painted, go and see the two or three cleaned 
pictures of his in the National Gallery. You try and 
give the effect of Time to it, and you’re not a sincere 
copyist, but a faker like the abominable people that 
bore worm-holes in pseudo-antique furniture... . 
When our friend, Giovanni, painted the picture, it 
looked just like that—and he was delighted with it.” 

She murmured something about his being very com- 
forting. 

“Thank God,” said he, “for a sound reason for giv- 
ing anybody comfort. Now,” he added, “if I may 


SILVESTER 163 


venture . .. I know the thing isn’t finished—that’s 
why ...if I may presume... .” 

He glowed enthusiastically, and, with curved thumb, 
subjected her work to his marvellously constructive 
criticism. She had the impression of being divinely 
taught. Infinitesimal details of modelling and shadow 
and tone that had escaped her eye were revealed to 
her through his uncanny vision. She remembered his 
first inspection of her work at the Uffizi in the spring 
—his diffident yet valuable suggestions. It was the 
same little elderly, boyish man, clad almost in the same 
clothes. Yet then he had been precise, apologetic. 
Now, just as he had done on the occasion of her visit 
with the Marchesa della Torre to the Roman theatre 
at Fiesole, he became once more the inspired teacher, 
sensitive artist speaking to artist through the livmg 
soul of a great genius. 

“Look at that—see?” said he, at last; thumb went 
back from Bellini to Perella. “I can tell you how it 
ought to be done, and you can do it, and you will do 
it to-morrow. But I could no more do it myself than 
kill a bull in a bull-ring. You understand, don’t you?” 

“Of course. Ill try to do it this afternoon.” 

“No. Better wait till to-morrow. It’ll take twenty- 
four hours to convince your artistic conscience that 
I’m right. Intellectually, you recognize it. But 
there’s something in us—God knows where”—he 
thumped head and heart—“‘which is far beyond intel- 
lect. If you rush at it, you may spoil the whole thing. 
Size it up subconsciously, and to-morrow you'll do it 
delicately. In the meanwhile, put the whole matter out 
of your mind.” 

Said Perella: “But I must work this afternoon. 
The days are shortening.” 

Mechanically he pulled on his other glove, and the 


164 PERELLA 


teacher vanished behind the courteous and shy gentle- 
man. 

“T was wondering whether you would do me the 
honour of lunching with me and cheering my loneliness 
for this afternoon. I’m, in fact, at a very loose end. 
Professor Brabiani is too ill to-day to receive visitors, 
so if you can put up, my dear Perella, with a boring 
old fellow, you’ll be doing an act of human charity.” 

*“But—Professor ” She caught a rapturous 
breath. “It would be simply lovely!” 

They lunched comfortably at a corner table in the 
Hotel de Europe where Gayton was staying. He 
sketched out the object of his journey. Professor 
Brabiani had devoted most of a lifetime to a monumen- 
tal work on the Ducal Palace. It was a mass of 
typescript practically finished. Illness postponing and 
finally precluding the author’s revision, he had prayed 
his caro confratello to undertake the editing, to which 
Gayton had willingly agreed. To be associated with 
the illustrious Brabiani was an honour that any scholar 
would have accepted with humility. Now, all of a 
sudden, the illustrious one’s illness had taken an ugly 
turn. His family was in despair. He, too, but rather 
over the unfinished history than over either himself or 
his family. ‘The necessary personal talk between Gay- 
ton and himself, till lately a matter to be arranged for 
an indefinite date of common convenience, became one of 
urgent importance. So Silvester Gayton had obeyed 
the summons of a despairing, obedient, and none too 
understanding family, who for years had loathed the 
sight and sound and all that therein was of the dull, 
useless and accurséd book—it’s always well to consider 
things from other folks’ point of view—and, on arrival, 
had found the doors of the illustrious Brabiani closed 
against him. 





SILVESTER 165 


“TI know people in Venice, of course, in my own line 
of business,” said he. ‘‘But they’re a stuffy lot. The 
erudite Latins expect you to be intellectual every time 
and all the time, without a moment’s interval for re- 
freshment. 'They’re the most unhumorous dogs in the 
world. I like to be human and crack a joke now and 
then . .. so, you see, I thought you might be in- 
dulgent enough to let me come and crack a joke with 
you.” 

They spent a mellow afternoon together, drifted in a 
gondola, in and out and round about the Grand Canal, 
and only saw one picture—the Giorgione in the Vendra- 
mini Palace. In the intimate comfort of the cushioned 
seat, he became the simple and charming companion of 
whom Perella had had glimpses here and there in 
Florence. He told her the funny little stories which 
every man with a quick eye on human foibles has har- 
vested during the years. He set her talking about her- 
self, her queer but innocent Bohemian past, her present 
fight for existence. Her small paternal heritage, con- 
scientiously invested by Grey Fanshawe, added to her 
aunt’s legacy, would give her over a hundred a year 
to live upon. With her earnings, she would be quite 
rich. His sympathy warmed her, and by the time 
they journeyed down the Grand Canal, she saw every- 
thing in the colours of the sunset—gold, green, blood- 
red—behind the dome of Santa Maria della Salute. 

They landed by the Piazzetta and, passing San 
Marco, crossed the Piazza to Florian’s, most historic 
of cafés, where they had tea. She forgot that he 
was the great Commendatore Silvester Gayton, carry- 
ing in his head knowledge enough to sink a super- 
Dreadnought, and chattered away to him as to a 
friendly girl. 

Only once did a chance word from him rob the pleas- 


166 PERELLA 


ant world of its colour, and transform it for a short 
while into a drab wilderness. 

“And our young friend, Blake—what’s become of 
him? Gone to America to make his fortune?” 

She braced herself to casual reply. ‘Yes, I think 
so. In fact, he sent me a line just before he 
sailed. . . .” 

“He is a clever boy. Perhaps a bit too clever. Too 
facile. But he’ll bring it off, I’m sure. . .. A nice 
boy, too, with most agreeable manners.” 

“Oh, charming manners,” said Perella. 

She caught the sound of an unusual rasp in her 
voice. But it was a question either of a rasp or a sob, 
and she was not going to betray herself to anybody on 
earth, not even to the gentle friend who had uncon- 
sciously set her back again amid grey sorrows. She 
was unaware that, in making her pronouncement, she 
had looked away from him, and that his shrewd eyes 
behind the glasses had seen the little twitch of her 
lips that framed the words. 

“I believe, my dear,” said he, “that every man even- 
tually gets what he deserves.” 

She braced herself again, and regarded him bravely. 

‘And what do you think Anthony Blake deserves?” 

“Tt’s early yet, to say. He has got to prove him- 
selfs? 

He touched her hand, drew her attention to a couple 
at the next table—a mean little man with a scrubby 
thin black moustache and a grenadier of a woman. 
They were disputing the bill. Four cakes, said she, 
had they eaten, and not five. The man at last con- 
fessed to surreptitious greed. The wife turned on him 
the most furious of shoulders. He paid the bill which 
happened to be an even lire. The waiter lingered. 


SILVESTER 167 


The man put down two pennies and slunk out behind 
his stalking mate. 

Silvester Gayton beamed. “Don’t you think I’m 
right? Hasn’t that fellow got what he deserves?” 

“But the poor waiter hasn’t,” cried Perella, diverted 
by the unseemly comedy. “How can people be so 
mean? And the worst of it is that they were English.” 

Silvester beckoned the waiter. 

“My friend,” said he in Italian, “if those were 
English, for the credit of my country I will raise the 
twenty centisimi they have given you to the sum to 
which you are honourably entitled. I see they have 
had chocolate, ices, and cakes.” 

The Commendatore, said the waiter, was very kind, 
but he could not abuse his generosity. Those were 
not English or Americans. 

*“What were they then?” asked Perella. 

“Tedeschi,” said the waiter with a mountainous 
shrug. And, with a wave of his hand, he went about 
his further business. 

“But they seemed to talk ordinary English,” said 
Perella. 

“You didn’t hear the lady, when she got angry, 
say, ‘more as’—mehr als in German—instead of ‘more 
than’? It’s a shibboleth. No matter how perfectly 
a German speaks English, yet, once he gets off his 
guard and excited, the ‘more as’ is inevitably bound to 
come out sooner or later.” 

He took the ball on the bound, according to the old 
French metaphor, and entertained her with stories 
of Teutonic psychology until she forgot their logical 
sequence from his mention of the name of the young 
man, Anthony Blake. 

After tea he accompanied her to the Zattere by 


168 PERELLA 


gondola, and took leave of her within a few yards of 
the Pension Polonia. 

She did not see him again in Venice, until the end 
of the following week. ‘The illustrious Brabiani having 
rallied, and being possessed with the fury of despair, 
had kept him busy night and day over the monumental 
work on the Ducal Palace, until, perhaps to the relief 
of everybody, a merciful Providence threw him into 
a syncope from which he died. Silvester stayed to 
attend the gloomy ceremonial of the funeral to which 
flocked half scholastic and official Italy, somewhat 
against his will, for the family, having loathed the 
monumental work for years, and accusing it of slow 
murder, glowered upon Silvester as an aider and abet- 
tor, an accessory, as it were, before the fact. During 
the interim between the death and the funeral, his time 
had been taken up by the Venetian intellectuals whose 
lack of humour he had deplored, and by research, neces- 
sary for the editing of the book, m the Archivio 
Centrale di Stato. There were also certain legal 
difficulties connected with the immortal work, the only 
typescript copy of which he had carried off to his room 
in the Hotel de l’7Europe. When the black-vested 
gathering melted away from the graveside in the Campo 
Santo, after the dismal orations, Florence summoned 
him on urgent affairs. 

Perella, rung up on the telephone at the Pension 
Polonia, felt a little thrill of wonder and pride at 
hearing him apologize, as though he had been a boy, 
for his criminal neglect. He, who had set his heart 
on showing her Venice, had lamentably failed. Would 
she forgive him? Would she forgive him to the extent 
of deigning to have tea with him at Florian’s before 
his imperative return to Florence? 

“Dear Professor—what?—I said ‘Dear Professor’— 


SILVESTER 169 


very dear Professor—of course I’ll come,” said Perella. 
“, . . Why, it’s only too delightful of you to think of 
me.” | 

So at the appointed hour they met. Silvester stood 
awaiting her on the terrace, and greeted her bare- 
headed with bowler hat and right-hand glove in gloved 
left hand, and umbrella crooked over left arm. 

Lonely and abandoned atom in a big world, she had 
lived since their last meeting in the glow of his friend- 
ship. She had warmed her hands, her heart even, 
before its glow. She derived from it an almost inex- 
plicable sense of comfort. She knew that, for some 
obscure reason, she had now the affection of the gentle, 
little great man. He was a shield and a buckler and a 
tower and all sorts of engines of defence behind which, 
at any given moment, she could fly for certain security. 
And his service was not given, like that of Fanshawe, 
irreproachable in consideration and mansuetude, for 
her father’s sake. It was for her own. She caught 
herself speculating on his loss in not having a daugh- 
ter who could devote herself to his happiness. She 
herself would have devoted herself to the happiness of 
her worshipped hero of a father, had that flame-like 
anomaly of manhood ever expressed the desire to be so 
cockered. But he had affectionately thrown her out, 
for no other reason, of course, than her own inefficiency. 
Before Caroline she paled as a rushlight before the 
sun. But without depreciation of her father, Professor 
Gayton was cast in a different mould. Save for a com- 
mon ground of intelligence and love of laughter, never 
were two men further apart. Silvester Gayton needed 
a woman about him. That did intuitive sex divine; 
yet it translated the need not into terms of C-~-lines, 
but into those of sweeter and more exquisi-c ..!2- 
tions. . 


170 PERELLA 


During this week’s interval she received a letter 
from the Marchesa della Torre, with whom she main- 
tained a pleasant acquaintance. 

“My dear,” wrote the elderly lady, “if you see our 
dear Professor in Venice, make him take you about a 
bit. You needn’t be afraid, for he’s fond of you; and 
it will do him good. I’m an old, old friend of his, 
and I know his life inside out, so I’m not talking 
foolishly. He has been very unhappy most of his life 
—and of course he’ll never marry. But he’s the dear- 
est of creatures, and I know how he appreciates any 
silly little attention that an old woman like me, or a 
young, clever girl like you, can pay him. He’s fed to 
the teeth with his great reputation and the bores of the 
earth who worry his life out, and he’d rather spend a 
couple of hours talking about any old thmg with a 
woman—me antiquated, or you young—provided the 
woman has the rudiment of a brain, and the beat of the 
heart—than with all the high-brows of Europe. So 
don’t have any compunction, my dear. Treat him as 
if you were his daughter, claiming his companionship 
and his guidance, and he’ll respond like a starving man 
presented with a good dish of spaghetti. . . .” 

The letter crystallized vague fancies of Perella, hith- 
erto held, as it were, in solution. So when they sat 
over their tea and ices in the Café Florian, she viewed 
him in a new and clearer light. The awful veil of his 
reputation fell away from him, and the natural gentle- 
ness of the man was enhanced by the pathetic. She 
noticed, with a queerly stirred vision, that the edge 
of his collar was frayed. This was not a sign of poy- 
erty. Nor, as in the case of her father’s old slovenliness 
of attire, one of loose and careless living. It was 
evidence of a woman’s neglect. Caroline would not 
have admitted such a collar into her father’s drawer, 


SILVESTER 171 


so he could not possibly have put it on. But there was 
nobody except the elderly Italian housekeeper, ignorant 
and uncritical of niceties, to throw offending articles 
of attire into, say, the dust-bin of charity. She saw 
him thrust a mechanical finger between collar-corner 
and throat. The thing was like a fret-saw. One of 
the buttons, too, of a glove, was hanging by a thread. 
The imp of the beautifully idiotic sped her, with a 
vague word of excuse, from the table to a desk of 
accounting women. Her breathless earnestness, her 
pretty, calculated Italian so prevailed, that a busy 
clerk dived into some secret feminine recess of her own 
and gave her what she demanded. She returned 
triumphant to the table, threaded needle in hand and 
thimble on finger. 

“My dear,” said the astonished Silvester, “‘what on 
earth are you doing?” 

Perella laughed. “I give you fifty guesses.” 

“You’re sewing a button on my glove.” 

“Fancy your guessing right first time!” 

He watched her slim fingers. When she handed the 
glove to him he thanked her in his prim courteousness. 

“I’m sure,” said he, “this is the only button that has 
ever been sewed on for me except by those who are 
professionally supposed to sew on buttons. And you 
know, my dear Perella, the professional button-sewer, 
like the plumber, is artistic, temperamental, forgetful.” 

He tested the sewing. “You’re the most accom- 
plished and kindest of button-sewers. Really it was 
very sweet of you to think of it.” 

That was the end of the matter; for all the needles 
and threads and thimbles in the world would not have 
mended the serrated collar, and she could not go out 
and buy him a new one. 


Besides, she had much to tell him. The Bellini was 


172 PERELLA 


finished—ready to be packed and dispatched to Buenos 
Aires. She had done her best to profit by his vision, 
and had been hoping he could see the picture. He de- 
plored his ability. Florence, a meeting of a certain 
dreadful set of eruditi of which he was president, 
claimed his immediate presence. But the Bellini done, 
what kept her in Venice? She broke on him her 
triumphant news. Another commission! A copy of 
the Vittore Carpaccio in the Accadémia—the Presenta- 
tion in the Temple, with the delicious people playing 
lutes and flutes at the foot. 

“Then we shan’t see you in Florence till goodness 
knows when,” said Silvester. 

“Tt’s a great big picture,” said Perella. ‘All one 
side taken up by three stuffy old gentlemen in difficult 
vestments.” 

“I know,” said he, “but there’s a great big lot of 
love to be got into it, and that takes time—a devil of 
a time.” He poised a hesitating spoon over the liquid 
remainder of his ice, and laid it down again. ‘‘Don’t,” 
he went on, “accept another commission in Venice with- 
out letting me know. Of course, big things are big 
things. But—I can fix up Florentine orders for 
you, I know, so don’t catch hold of anything here. 
Besides, I don’t like to feel you’re all alone in Venice. 
I should like you to be in Florence where I, if you'll 
allow me to say so, my dear, can keep an eye on 
you.” 

She divined something more than solicitude for her 
welfare. He had struck a faint minor chord of self 
which vibrated through her very gratefully. She said 
in a tone in which raillery was redeemed by a soft 
tendervess: 

“Do you think I chall run away with a gon: dlier?” 

“You might run away with anything.” He tapped 


SILVESTER 173 


her hand across the table. “Often an old bachelor 
knows more about women than the most multitudinously 
married of married men. At any moment—all alone 
here—you might do something, if not desperate, at 
least fantastic. You might get religion, and go into 
a convent, or get pneumonia and go into the Campo 
Santo; in either case, I shouldn’t be there to give you a 
helping hand out of the muddle.” 

Perella, looking down, made three separate little 
movements. With her forefinger she pushed away from 
her, first her tea-cup, then her ice-glass, then her glass 
of water. 

“IT can’t understand,” she said, at last, “why you 
bother your head about me.” 

“Can’t you?” He leaned across the table. “And 
yet you’re a little person of very quick intelligence.” 

She started, flushed. What did he mean? She 
raised her dark eyes to meet his smile, very kindly and 
somewhat sad. 

“That’s why,” she answered. ‘My intelligence tells 
me that I’m of no particular account to anybody .. . 
so why should you worry about me?” 

“Just because I’m a selfish old fellow, my dear, and 
_ Pve given you my affection. That sounds horribly 
patronizing, but I don’t mean it that way. Who could 
help it? Personally and selfishly, I should prefer to 
feel that you were near by me in Florence rather than 
far away, out of callin Venice. So that if there was a 
glove button .. .” 

Here was the unhappy great man of the Marchesa’s 
letter revealing himself, as it were, from behind her 
words, and pleading for himself. In the confusion of 
thought and emotion, tears dimmed her eyes. 

“T’ll cancel the Carpaccio and go back to Florence,” 
she declared. 


174 PERELLA 


He shot out both hands in protestation. “My dear 
child, you’ll do no such lunatic thing.” 

He fussed and called the waiter, and paid the modest 
bill and led her out into the mysteriously lit Piazza. 

“If you did such a wicked and sinful thing for me, 
I'd take train to Naples and climb up Mount Vesuvius 
and throw myself into the crater. All I ask you is to 
come back to Florence as soon as you’ve done the Car- 
paccio.” 

So, as they crossed the Piazza and the Piazzetta to 
the steps where the gondolas were moored, the little 
pact was made. It was made in a drizzling rain, under 
Silvester’s umbrella. It was a miserable evening for 
those who could not see the astonishing effects of con- 
flicting lights across the wet and gleaming flagstones. 

. San Marco was but a black mass against blacker 
darkness. ‘The Campanile caught here and there a 
fugitive and perplexing illumination. The shops in 
the arcades shone dazzling, but beyond the fringe of 
glistening brown edges to the sides of the square, they 
accentuated the central mystery of gloom. ‘The elec- 
tric lights on the Piazzetta cast no shadows. 

The day had been fine and the gondolier had not 
thought of a tenda, the historic coach body stuck over 
the seats. In the soft and penetrating rain they en- 
tered a gondola and, side by side under the Professor’s 
umbrella, they made their slow way round the point of 
the Salute into the Canal of the Giudecca. 

She felt a criminal, a poisoner, a murderer, in allow- 
ing him to endure such discomfort. Protestations had ' 
been vain. He had summoned her, said he, for his own 
egotistic pleasure, from the Zattere, and to Zattere 
would he safely conduct her. The rain was gentle, the 
umbrella fairly adequate, the journey not unromantic. 


SILVESTER 175 


Quivering spears of light shot across the still, yet 
fretted, waters. 

“Tt’s very beautiful, all the same,” said Perella. 

“TY think I'll reckon it the most charming quarter of 
an hour in my life,” said Silvester. 

At the steps of the Zattere he landed briskly. He 
stood, one hand holding the umbrella, the other out- 
stretched to help her. 

Owing both to the confused light of the long line of 
buildings, and the slipperiness of the wet steps, she 
missed his hand, caught at nothing, and fell, her right 
arm under her. Picked up, at first she laughed at her 
clumsiness, then became conscious of a darting agony so 
acute that she nearly fainted. 

The woman of the Pension Polonia carried her to her 
room, and Silvester sat in the salon until a doctor came 
and made his report. It was somewhat alarming. 


CHAPTER XI 


As a matter of fact, as far as Silvester’s unscientific 
mind could gather from the Italian doctor’s explana- 
tion, Perella was in a devil of a mess altogether. Her 
arm, doubled up under her, had been broken into all 
kinds of compound fractures, chiefly of the wrist and 
upper arm, and, as her side had caught the edge of the 
last stone stair, there was fear of some internal injury. 

Silvester, whom a retired celibate life had rendered un- 
familiar with such crises of existence, wrung his hands 
in his despair, like the Rover gentleman in the idiotic 
old poem. What was to be done? He did not care 
for the look of the doctor, a seedy, garlic-emanating 
person of middle-age, who, being resident on the Zat- 
tere, had been summoned as the nearest to hand. He 
had the worried air of the unsuccessful man. He had 
set the bones as best he could. Spoke of plaster of 
Paris for weeks. A trained nurse, of course... . 
The lady of the Pension Polonia also wrung her hands. 
The Pension was full to bursting point. Only as a fa- 
vour to Madame Toselli had she reserved a room, dis- 
appointing another client, for the young lady. As to 
a nurse ... there was no corner in which she could 
sleep; and no service available for the special needs of 
an invalid. There was, of course, the British Hospital 
on the Giudecca, across the Canal. .. . . 

By the telephone they learned that not a bed in the 
hospital was available. Didn’t they know that there 
was an influenza epidemic? Also a ship from Egypt 
had landed them with more typhoid patients than they 


knew what to do with. The hospital bitterly resented 
176 


SILVESTER A177 


the doctor’s suggestion. He began to wring his hands, 
too. ‘There was only the General Hospital. 

“Never in this world,” cried Silvester. ‘“Can’t you 
suggest something else?’ 

He spoke Italian with Italian gesture and a certain 
amount of Italian fire. The signorina was the daugh- 
ter of his old friend, to him preciocissima. It was 
through his fault that she had fallen. Had he grasped 
her hand, this would not have happened. The best that 
the science and luxury of Europe could offer was at 
her disposition. 'The seedy doctor made the humble 
suggestion that he would welcome a consultation with 
the eminent Dr. Farini, one of the greatest surgeons in 
Italy. 

“Tf that is so,” said Silvester, “‘send for him at once.” 

The doctor went to the telephone. Silvester and the 
lady of the Pension mounted to the little room with 
windows overlooking a noisy, re-echoing calle, where 
lay Perella, a sorry white-faced thing, done up in 
splints and bandages. She smiled wanly, and de- 
clared herself perfectly comfortable. 

“T’ll never forgive myself,” said Silvester. 

“But it was my stupidity, dear Professor. There 
was your hand. I thought I was grabbing it, but the 
light must have been tricky. It’s I that can’t forgive 
myself for causing everybody all this trouble.” 

“You’re the most marvellous little angel I’ve ever 
met,” said Silvester. 

The next hour or two were nightmare. Perella 
fainted. ‘The lady of the Pension bundled him out 
unceremoniously to fetch the doctor. He sat in the 
salon, solitary among the alien inmates who trickled in 
to await their dinner. Then came the hour of dinner 
to which he was invited. But he had no use for food. 
He sat alone and looked at the pictures of stray sum- 


178 PERELLA 


mer numbers of the Sketch and Tatler and Je Sais 
Tout. 

The great Farini arrived, and greeted him with the 
flattering remark that the call of the illustrious Com- 
mendatore Gayton was a command. He went up to 
Perella. Stayed for the major portion of eternity. 
Came down, eventually, with a grave face, and, as the 
diners had flooded the salon, drew Silvester into the 
private bureau of the Pension. ‘The original diagnosis 
had been correct. The first treatment had naturally 
been in the nature of first aid. He, forewarned, had 
brought the necessary appliances. There were internal 
lesions. No danger to life, of course, but the case was 
grave. 

Like Sir Ralph, in the same old poem, Silvester tore | 
his hair—or the greying fringe of it that was left. 

‘For the love of God, doctor, what can we do? She 
can’t stay here. ‘There’s no room in the British Hos- 
pital, and I can’t leave that little girl whom I love like 
my own daughter alone in the Ospedale Civile. My 
God! If it had only happened in Florence.” 

“What then?” 

“What then? Why, I have an apartment five times 
too big for me, where she could have beautiful air and 
a hundred nurses and delicate food and everything she 
needs.” 

Dr. Farini smiled professionally. ‘There’s no rea- 
son why she shouldn’t be moved. Im a civilized coun- 
try like Italy there are ambulance carriages. Already 
T have telephoned for an English nurse from Florence. 
In Venice there are none available. She can take her 
back. Perhaps, too, Dr. Bardi would accompany her. 
But, my dear Commendatore, all that is expensive.” 

“*Will it be under a million lire?” asked Silvester. 

“You jest, Commendatore!” 


SILVESTER 179 


“Then it shall be done,” cried Silvester, and he wrung 
the doctor’s two hands with extraordinary fervour. 

When he became aware that his presence in the Pen- 
sion Polonia was a matter rather of hindrance than of 
usefulness, he made his way to the Hotel de l’Europe. 
There he found his modest luggage in the hall, and, 
for the first time, remembered that he was due in Flor- 
ence on the morrow. He bade the porter take it back 
to his room. If the Society of Archivisti of Florence 
could not get on without his presidency, they could kill 
each other, and throw themselves into the Arno, or dis- 
solve in any old way they pleased. He was going to 
see Perella safe into the apartment in the Viale Milton. 

He mounted to his room, drew his gloves from his 
pocket, and threw them on the table. Memory smote 
him. He took up one, and the picture arose in his 
mind of her little dark head bending over it amid the 
crowd and clatter of the Café Florian, and her deft 
fingers plying needle and thread. 


So it came to pass that, after dreadful disorganiza- 
tion of easeful official life, Perella found herself in- 
stalled in the Viale Milton, with a view from her bed 
over the hills and Monte Morello, with walls discreetly 
graced by the warmest and most comforting of Sil- 
vester’s Primitives, and with a pleasant woman in blue 
uniform by her side. In spite of pain and the heavy 
discomfort of imprisoned arm, she felt curiously con- 
tented. Never in her life had she awakened in a room 
so gracious, or to ministrations so tender and noiseless. 
She reflected that this was the first time she had ever 
been so ill as to stay in bed, having been a young crea- 
ture of surprising toughness. It was an odd experi- 
ence. 

The mellow autumn days passed almost uncounted, 


180 PERELLA 


filled by sick-room routine, delicate meals, orgies of 
books, magazines and periodicals, and the visits of 
friends. For, when she recovered sufficiently from the 
injury to her side, she had many visitors. ‘The Pension 
Toselli supplied Madame herself and the Grewsons and 
the Brabazon ladies. The last brought her a knitted 
magenta silk bed-jacket, and a copy of the late Pro- 
fessor Henry Drummond’s Natural Law in the Spirit- 
ual World, which they still regarded as the final pro- 
nouncement on the reconciliation of science with re- 
ligion. And Perella reintroduced them to Professor 
Gayton, who was very shy and charming, and so sent 
them away exceedingly happy. ‘There was also the 
Marchesa della Torre, who came nearly every day, and, 
after the way of discreet and capable old English 
women, deputized for Silvester, incapable head of house- 
hold, and shared with the nurse the doctor’s confidences 
and instructions. 'There was the Signorina Demonetti, 
who brought humble little offerings of chocolate; and 
a stray girl or two came, fellow-copyists whose acquaint- 
ance she had made in the galleries. And, of course, 
there was Silvester fussing in at odd moments, after 
many precautionary taps, to get the last minute’s news 
of her progress, and to bring flowers or an armful of the 
newest and lightest literature. 

Once he suggested summoning Caroline Annaway. 
It must be so dreadful for her to be all alone, in a 
strange old bachelor’s house. 

“Dreadful,” she said. “And you’re a_ perfect 
stranger—perfettissimo,” she smiled. 

But she would not let him send for Caroline, having 
a delicate sense of environment. Caroline, contented 
as far as it was possible for widow of John Annaway to 
be, prospered in her Chelsea tea-shop. She wrote glow- 


SILVESTER 181 


ing accounts of crowded tables and of new curtains she 
was putting up in her flat. Perella took counsel of the 
Marchesa. 

“Of course,” said she, “if the dear Professor thinks 
it’s a compromising situation, and would like . . .” 

“Good God! my child,” cried the Marchesa, “I’m 
here. What more could the prim little man want?” 

“He isn’t prim,” Perella declared. ‘“He’s a dar- 
ling.” 

“Then what’s all the fuss about?” 

Thus came the decision which she announced to 
Silvester. 

“It was for your sake entirely,” said he. “I 
thought 4 

“I know,” Perella interrupted. “It must be awful 
for you not to be able to give me the things that would 
make me happy. I’m simply dying for a couple of 
kangaroos and a diamond tiara.” 

She stretched out her left hand, took his, and, before 
he knew what she was doing, kissed it. He bent over 
and touched her hair gently. 

*“You’re the very dearest child,” said he. 

And then he went and looked for quite a time at the 
Monte Morello. | 

At first she was much worried about the Carpaccio. 
She had set her heart on painting the three little musi- 
cians in the predella. But Silvester assuring her that 
Rosso, the dealer, had promised to keep the commission 
open until such time as she could execute it, she felt 
greatly comforted. The world was a charming place, 
populated chiefly by angels. 

One morning the nurse slit open for her an envelope 
bearing an American stamp, extracted the letter, and 
left her to read it. Returning half an hour later, she 





182 PERELLA 


found Perella with eyes that looked as if they had been 
cried out. | 

It was an airy letter from Anthony, telling her of 
skyscrapers and boot-legging and the Players’ Club 
and a private exhibition of his work that Cornelius 
Adams was arranging for him. But competition was 
ferocious. Every square- or lantern-jawed young man 
he came across seemed to be a black and white artist. 
He would have to do something new or die. He was 
thinking of blood—real blood—as a medium. Human 
blood would create the greatest sensation, but it was ex- 
pensive in many ways. Rabbit was banal. If any- 
body would ship him a cheap consignment of quaggas, 
a colossal fortune was at his command. And then, hey! 
for Peacocks in England. But, failing this, the future 
was darkened by. the conglomerate sticks of charcoal 
upheld by the myriad horde around him of hungry 
artists exactly in his own position. 

“So Heaven knows, Perella mia, when our dream can 
come true. Heaven knows whether it ever can. But it 
was a beautiful dream and at any rate we’ve had it. If 
I don’t come up to what your romantic little soul has 
pictured me, I can only ask for your forgiveness. D’m 
just a middling artist, without a dog’s chance of doing 
sincere work. So, my dear, forget all about me. I’m 
not worth your thoughts. Perhaps one day I may 
come to you with a miraculous muster of peacocks, and, 
if your heart is free, and if I and they make humble 
obeisance before you . . . well, you see, my dear . . .” 

“My dear” saw. She saw with an agony of soul that 
surpassed the agony of shattered arm and bruised or- 
gans. It was the end. Really the end. And the an- 
guish of it was that the letter was all Anthony. She 
could picture him talking of darkening spears of char- 
coal and musters of peacocks. She hoped to God she 


SILVESTER 183 


would never see a peacock again. She would slay it 
on sight! 

Well, it served her right, the goatherd’s daughter, 
for giving her heart to the prince in disguise. . . . At 
any rate, that was the end of it... . 

Later in the day she asked the nurse to write a letter 
at her dictation. 

“I am desired by Miss Perella Annaway, who has 
unfortunately sprained her arm and is unable to write, 
to acknowledge your letter, and to say that she quite 
understands, and that there’s nothing more to be said.” 

“And that’s that,” said the nurse to herself, wonder- 
ing what kind of miscreant could be the “Anthony 
Blake, Esquire,” who had.turned down so fragrant a 
flower of womanhood as her little patient. 

She would have given much to receive Perella’s con- 
fidences; but Perella’s pride kept her heart in oyster- 
shells, so that no one could get at it save by painful 
opening. She did her best, like a kindly and tactful 
woman, to relieve the following hours of depressed reac- 
tion. One clings to a dream as long as one can, even 
though one knows that one is in process of awakening to 
the dull reality of night or day. But when the awaken- 
ing finally comes, the dream has gone for ever, vanished 
into the awful Limbo where are stored, like shadow 
plays, the myriad despairs and beauties of human 
dreams. 

“I’m very anxious, nurse,” said Silvester, meeting 
her outside the room, after one of his visits to Perella. 
“She says there’s nothing wrong; but she seems to have 
lost vitality. That dreadful internal injury... 
don’t you think we ought to have another opinion?” 

The nurse smiled. 

“You needn’t worry about her health. She’s getting 
along splendidly.” 


184 PERELLA 


“Then why ... ? She looks as white as a ghost, 
and one can see that, for all her sweetness, talking is 
an effort.” 

And the nurse told him about the letter which she had 
not seen, and the reply which she had written. 

Silvester nodded. ‘“We’ll go slow with her for the 
next week or so.” 

At a door in the hall where they had met he turned, 
and laid a finger on his lips. 

‘Not aword. Make her think you think she has had 
a slight set-back. Much better.” 

“Blesséd babe,” muttered the nurse, when he disap- 
peared. 

He went into his own library on the other side of the 
building, whose southern windows commanded the com- 
pact majesty of Florence. It was a large room lined 
with books from floor to ceiling. Over the mantelpiece 
beneath which a wood fire was burning, hung an Adora- 
tion by a pictor ignotus of the school of Fra Barto- 
lomeo. There was Virgin and chubby Child, consider- 
ably advanced for His presumed age, and wooden oxen 
and a premature, golden-haloed saint or two in attend- 
ance, and the Three Kings, with their animals and 
offerings of jewels, and the usual background of hills. 
He had discovered it years before in a musty palazzo 
belonging to a decaying Italian family. Save for an 
agreeable colouring of blues and mellow reds, it was 
not very good. Not a critic in the world could have 
supported the family’s claim to its Fra Bartolomeo au- 
thorship. It had a hundred unforgivable crudities. 
But there was one little white impudent ass, curvetting 
under a dull and bearded Melchior, whose sleek, arched 
neck and indescribably satirical eye had caught his 
fancy. He had bought the picture when death’s final 
decay had rendered the family a fringe of nobodies, and 


SILVESTER 185 


the contents of the palazzo had been sold by auction. 
He grew to love the ironical ass. None but a Great 
Master, a Great Thinker, a Great Philosopher, a Great 
Seer, unless he was a mere fortuitous bungler, could 
have proclaimed for all time so devastating a criticism 
of things human and humanly supposed divine. At 
first one thought it was just a trick of a bit of white 
paint; but then one saw that the eye was the resolving 
point of the carefully drawn, truculent attitude of the 
sneering animal. 

He caught the ass’s abominable eye as he entered the 
room. ‘The ass was laughing. The ass said: 

“I’ve looked upon many damned fools during the five 
centuries of my existence, but of all of them, friend 
Silvester, I think you’re the damnedest.” 

For the first time for twenty years, Silvester loathed 
the beast. Hitherto he had regarded him as a friend, 
one who saw eye to eye with him, through mundane 
vanities and superstitions, and aided him to resolve 
values and thus apply to human phenomena his serene 
analytical vision. And now this cynical party to one 
of the most soul-stirring scenes in the world’s history 
was jeering at him and calling him a damned fool. 

Now, the picture hung on the north wall facing the 
window, and sometimes the sun in summer fell hot upon 
it, so that, in view of blistering and crackling of canvas, 
he had rigged up a protective curtain. Yet on this 
November evening, the room only lit by shaded mellow 
electric lamps, he drew the curtain, with an angry 
gesture, over the abhorrent ass, and sat down at his 
great and generous old Venetian table to what, up to 
that moment, he had considered a labour of love—the 
reduction to lucidity of the late Professor Brabiant’s 
monumental work on the Ducal Palace. In his chair 
with the curved arms and the crossed, inlaid planks that 


186 PERELLA 


made the supports, he leaned back uneager. He drew 
a cigarette from his modest silver case, and sought 
around for matches. He rose, with a little gesture of 
impatience, and turned to the mantelpiece where al- 
ways, In a cunning casket, lay an emergency reserve. 
He stood with his back to the fire, smoking reflectively 
and regarding across the rug-strewn floor, the manu- 
script and typescript laden table, with its two shaded 
lamps concentrating their beams on nothing less than 
abstract Work. 

“I suppose I must get on with the beastly thing,” 
said he. 

He made a pace or two about the room; looked up at 
the drawn curtain. Ashamed of previous childishness, 
he flung it back. 

“IT must get on with the infernal book,” he repeated. 

And then he caught the ass’s mocking eye. From 
the foul and bitter lips beneath the scornful nostrils 
came: 

“Who, of God’s insects, is ever going to read the dull 
stuff, anyway?” 

He drew the obscuring curtains once again very 
angrily. 

“Oh, Hell!” cried the mildest man in Europe, and the 
World’s Greatest Authority on Pre-Raphaelite Italian 
Art; and he rushed out of the intolerably enchanted 
library and sought refuge with a novel, before the fire 
in the restful atmosphere of the drawing-room, sancti- 
fied by his serene Primitives. There his thoughts 
could dwell, without the ironical comment of a devil in 
ass’s guise, on the unhappiness of the beloved waif 
under his protection. His heart being filled with pity 
and indignation, the novel had no meaning for him. It 
sprawled on the floor by his side. His acquaintance 
with the poignancy of life had been greater than that 


SILVESTER 187 


with which a careless world credited him. Few had 
known, still fewer remembered; perhaps one creature 
left in the world still cared and sympathized—the 
Marchesa della Torre. It was only the oldest and 
wretchedest petty drama in the world. He had adored 
and married, ever so many years ago. And then a 
gayer gallant had ridden up and carried off the lady, 
and she had died soon afterwards. There had been no 
divorce, no anything to arouse even private attention. 
Thenceforward he called himself a bachelor—of late, an 
old bachelor. The wound had never healed, as the say- 
ing goes. . . . He could scarcely find it in his heart to 
reproach her, because the other man was six foot high 
and handsome as a god, and was in process of doing 
devil-may-care things in wildernesses, and sang like an 
angel. He, Silvester, had no chance against him. 
Nature, for good or evil, took its course. But it hurt 
like any of the tortures devised for damned souls by 
his friend Orcagna. . . . And the man had died a year 
ago, covered with medals and orders and decorations, 
and narrowly escaped a national funeral. 

So the sensitive little man who had kept his heart- 
break hidden from the world for nearly thirty years, 
sorrowed over the lamentable plight of Perella. Yet 
what could he do save call Anthony a damned young 
scoundrel, and wonder how a man of such apparent in- 
telligence, having in his hand a pear] richer than all his 
tribe, should throw it away like Othello’s base Indian. 
He made fierce resolve never to have anything to do 
with the unutterable young man. . . . The accurséd 
part of it was that, between Anthuny Blake and the 
Other Man in his own life, there were the most vital 
points of resemblance. . . . The poor little girl! Oh! 
It was a beastly shame—the poor little girl! He rose 
and went, in his instinctive connoisseur fashion, round 


188 PERELLA 


the room, peering at his Primitives. A little Madonna, 
of the school of Giotto, looking straight out of the 
cracked canvas gave him most comfort. 

It is a question whether Silvester, if at that sensitive 
and emotional moment he had met the glance of the 
malevolent ass, would or would not have slashed him 
out of the picture, and cast him into the flames. 

As it was, he picked up his novel, and enjoyed it for 
the rest of the evening. 


Every balm that human affection could apply to 
bruised hearts was lavished on Perella. Unconscious 
of such treatment, her pride led the way to remedy. 
In a day or two she became once more the Perella of 
jest and laughter. 

“Y’m wasting such a lot of time,” she cried. ‘Rosso 
thinks he can place another copy of the Franciabigio, 
and there’s still the Carpaccio to be done. Do you 
think I'll be able to stand somewhere in Italy and paint 
with one hand in Florence and the other in Venice?” 

And then there came a day, a dark day, of storm 
cloud and whirling sleet, that obscured all vision of 
Tuscan Hills and pleasant things, when three wise 
men, two of them the greatest surgeons in Italy, and the 
third, the greatest authority on Italian painting, stood 
by the bedside. All three looked very grave, and one 
of them had eyes filled with unaccustomed tears. 
Perella’s arm, released from its plaster of Paris band- 
age, lay limp on the bed. The bones of the upper arm 
had set, and so had those of the wrist. But the wrist 
tendons had been torn irremediably. .. . 

With her right hand she would never be able to paint 
again. 


PART IV 
BEATRICE 
CHAPTER XII 


A BEWILDERED Anthony wandered about New York, 
when he had nothing else to do, in order to study the 
ways and sub-ways of the city. Finding that a com- 
fortable stock of francs reduced itself to a miserable sum 
of dollars, he quickly moved from the sedate hotel to 
which he had been recommended, to a humble hostelry in 
a street whose number conveyed no social meaning to his 
polite friends. Only a humorous outlook on life saved 
him from unbearable sense of grievance. Here he was, 
accustomed for many months to the fat of the land, con- 
demned again, figuratively (and sometimes literally 
when he dined alone) to the leanest of diet. Had not 
the proceeding been comic, he could have danced in 
impotent fury at having to put on unclean shoes in the 
morning, and go out and sit in a sort of circus and have 
them shined. He quickly found that taxis were beyond 
his means, unless he cared to spend his fortune on a 
fortnight’s transport. Thus, perhaps for the good of 
his soul, he familiarized himself with methods of demo- 
cratic travel alien to his nature and his habits. At one 
custom his soul revolted. He would not wear his ticket 
in his hatband. The fact of being swallowed up, an 
unimportant unit, in perpetual crowds, at once fas- 
cinated and confused him. Hitherto such grey-faced, 
hurrying folk had been far apart from his existence. 
His idea of congested traffic had been limited to the 
square mile or so of the West End of London; his no- 
tion of crowds confined to the return, generally by 
motor-car, from a big race-meeting or a football match. 


He had viewed, from the door of a first-class carriage, 
189 


190 PERELLA 


excursion trains packed with perspiring people, and 
wondered how the poor devils could stand it. He found 
that all the inhabitants of New York, except the very 
wealthy—and even millionaires could not afford the 
time to get from their millionaire homes above Central 
Park to Wall Street by automobile—crammed them- 
selves into trains underground and overhead, and into 
the tram-cars ceaselessly clanging up and down the 
great avenues. The whole day of New York reminded 
him of the dreadful six o’clock exodus from the city 
when he had tried, for a few months, to attune himself 
to the discords of the office of Messrs. Blake, Bislett and 
Smith. 

He was bewildered by a thousand unfamiliar things. 
It seemed so absurd not to be able to call for beer or 
light wine at a restaurant; so demoralizingly vicious to 
drink a friend’s cocktails or whisky behind closed doors. 
The standard of living awed him. These people, great 
and small, thought in dollars as he had of late thought 
in lire and francs. There were no poor. Even the 
humblest of his acquaintances possessed automobiles, 
and only forbore to use them because there was no room 
for them in the crowded streets. The racy, allusive 
talk bewildered him; the frantic interest everyone 
seemed to take in unintelligible politics. Personalities 
—Senators, Judges, Mayors, State Governors, Wash- 
ington officials, Presidents of Companies and Universi- 
ties—of whom he had but vaguely heard, assumed in 
conversation vivid importance, world-shaking influence. 
And everybody seemed to be a personal friend of the 
President of the United States. It was only when he 
found himself alone and held his racking head between 
his hands, that he realized that America was a mighty 
big country, and that these personalities, nebulous to 
him, directed, consciously or unconsciously, the desti- 


BEATRICE 191 


nies of more of mankind than even inhabited the Amer- 
ican continent. 

He was bewildered, too, by the eager hospitality of 
all to whom, in a decent way, he was accredited. Bea- 
trice Ellison opened drawing-rooms of distinguished la- 
dies who, in their turn, opened others. Through Cor- 
nelius Adams’s introduction to the Players’, he went the 
round of the pleasant clubs, the Lotus, the Lambs, the 
St. Nicholas, and became a member of one or two un- 
housed lunching clubs. Although welcomed, invited 
to dinners and dances and suppers and parties and male 
reunions, he yet found himself a stranger in a strange 
city. 

““What’s the matter?” said Beatrice, one day. 

“T never knew what astigmatism was before. Now 
I do. Every line I know to be straight and parallel 
with others is going about in front of my eyes like 
forked lightning. I need properly corrective lenses.” 

She laughed in her lazy way. 

“TY think you are the first Englishman who has come 
over and, finding things difficult to understand, has 
laid the blame on himself and not on America.” 

“It’s only a criminal lunatic,” he cried, “who would 
blame a country where everybody is suffocating him 
with kindness.” 

** ‘Suffocating’—doesn’t that imply a bit of blame?” 

He rose—he was in her drawing-room—and flung 
eut his arms. 

“My dearest Madonna, don’t be so literal. Well, 
perhaps I do feel overwhelmed. Here am I, an obscure 
artist, an Englishman, and everywhere—I know thanks 
to you—I’m received with open arms. And I stand 
in the perfectly charming embrace and feel that I’m a 
sort of odd lizard mistaken for a man.” 

“You are a man, my dear,” said Beatrice, “and a 


192 PERELLA 


man, provided he’s white in both senses of the word, is 
always welcomed in our country.” 

“Madonna Consolatrix,” said he. 

She was, indeed, his consoler in that queer sensitive 
civilization of an unfamiliar scale of values. 

“Were I,”? said he once tocher, “the ordinary young 
Englishman coming out with good introductions in or- 
der to enjoy myself, I shouldn’t worry about anything, 
and I should have the time of my life. But I’ve got to 
earn my living, my bread and butter. I’ve got every- 
thing to learn. I’m up against it. Don’t you see?” 

“Tf you realize that, it’s half the battle. You’ve 
only got to make good.” 

“Do you think I can?” 

“Tf I didn’t, do you suppose I should have brought 
you here? And you’re beginning to do it.” 

Again the lady of consolation. 

Under the auspices of Beatrice and Cornelius Adams 
he had already found himself doing a few portraits. 
His young gaiety, and his easy manner of the well-bred 
man of the world, no doubt weighed down the balance 
in the mind of hesitating sitters. He had the gift of 
talking amusingly while he worked, thus converting 
a sitting from an hour’s stiff boredom into a few quickly 
passing moments of laughter. A dull, scrubby fellow, 
with twice his talent, would not have had half his 
chance. This, perhaps, Anthony did not realize. He 
was a modest youth, devoid of self-consciousness. He 
was bred in a world where one laughed and talked and 
made oneself agreeable without thinking anything more 
about it. As a human being he took himself for 
granted. But as an artist, he abased himself before 
his own standard, often with terror-stricken misgiv- 
ing. He still felt sick at the thought of his adventure 
with the Duchesse de Montfaucon. In the making of 


BEATRICE 193 


the first few portraits, he sweated the blood of his soul. 

Cornelius Adams, bluff, florid, good-humoured, was 
always a force behind him. He proposed a studio, 
right away up town, shrewdly saying: 

“People will think ten times more of you—and peo- 
ple’s opinions are, as a general rule, translatable into 
dollars—if they’ve got to come to you instead of your 
going to them.” 

Anthony explained that a fashionable studio was as 
remote from his financial possibilities as a steam yacht. 

“Don’t worry,” said Cornelius. “Ill fix it up. On 
a business basis, of course. Come round with me to my 
attorney the day after to-morrow, and we’ll draw up a 
little agreement.” 

Anthony expressed his gratitude. 

“But why re 

Cornelius Adams laughed. “Put it that I just like 
you. I liked you from the moment you accosted me in 
Florence and asked where you could get a cocktail.” 

“It was awful cheek,” said Anthony. 

‘The same thing can be done impudently, or with an 
air. ... You assumed at once that I was one of the 
cognoscenti.” 

“You and everybody are a damned sight too kind to 
me,” said Anthony. 

Thus he became more than ever bewildered, spending 
his nights in the obscure eyrie which his purse com- 
pelled, and his days in the comfortably furnished studio 
- of a pastellist who was going round the world. 

Unseen influences caused a magazine editor to send 
for him. A fantastic story needed illustration, and the 
editor was trying to discover the new note that would 
express the fantasy. Would Mr. Blake care to sub- 
mit a couple of drawings without prejudice? Anthony 
took away a typescript copy and set to work in his new 





194 PERELLA 


studio, feeling that, at last, the Great Opportunity had 
come. A fortnight afterwards a crushed and humbled 
artist sat in Beatrice Ellison’s drawing-room, declar- 
ing himself the most incompetent dog who had ever mis- 
taken his vocation. 

The bitter months of winter passed. He knew what 
it was to go about in over-shoes, the galoshes only fa- 
miliar to an English mind through curates in ancient 
farcical comedies, along streets of snow piled four feet 
high on the kerb, with here and there a hewn outlet; 
what it was to linger cowardly in a room’s delicious 
warmth, dreading the moment when he should have to 
emerge into the icy air. And yet, there was a strange 
exhilaration in it all. Pulses throbbed, brain was clear, 
work was easy. 

His little show of portraits and pencil drawings— 
Breton and Hungarian types—had been encouraging. 
There had actually been sales. . . . By February he 
found that he could earn enough to support himself, if 
not in comfort, at least in decency, while paying Cor- 
nelius Adams for the studio according to the terms of 
the contract. But the fortune that would be available 
for peacocks and Perella was as far as ever from at- 
tainment. 

And Perella? 

He had written protesting against the terms of the 
nurse’s curt note. He had received no reply. As a 
salve to conscience he sent a cable: 

“Ts this really the end?” 

To which he received the reply: “La commedia é 
finita.” 

He shrugged his shoulders. Well, that was the end 
of a romantically impossible episode. She had defi- 
nitely turned him down. The play was played out. 
Everybody, man and woman, made mistakes in hfe, and 


BEATRICE 195 


the frank recognition of the fact, as in this case, obvi- 
ated tragedy. ‘This final cable filled him with immense 
relief. He held her dear in his memory as a strange 
ultra-human thing, a laugh, a sprite, a will-o’-the-wisp 
lucency; but as the woman who would march with his 
ambitions triumphant through the cohorts of the women 
of the great world which was his own, she had no ex- 
istence. 

Farewell, Perella, thing of fire in the spirit, of weary, 
pallid nothingness in the flesh, of poor Jittle cheap, 
drooping finery on insignificant body, as he had last 
beheld her at the railway station of Florence. Yet she 
was a memory of exquisiteness, a perfumed scarf which 
he would keep for ever in a secret drawer. 


He saw much of Beatrice Ellison, his patroness, 
though she sought by every delicate device in the world 
to disclaim such a worldly relationship. Months be- 
fore he had christened her Madonna, after the old 
Italian way. And this was much better, connoting, as 
it did, something of the spiritual. She worried unduly 
over the one room in the obscure hotel with which he 
professed (mendaciously, as it seemed to her) to be 
quite content; and she chafed at the thought of a cen- 
sorious world which would criticize her morals if she 
gave him quarters in her own roomy house. Both in 
Dinard and in the shooting-box near Ipolysag she had 
regarded him as a part of her establishment. After 
their leave-taking on the Customs quay, she realized 
with a queer gasp of pain, her prospective loneliness 
in spite of her cohorts of friends even then and there 
surrounding her. . . . Of course there was Fargus liv- 
ing under her roof. “But Fargus, as everyone knew, 
was her secretary. Nobody had even been idiot enough 
to find his residence there the least bit scandalous. But 


196 PERELLA 


with regard to the charming and accomplished An- 
thony, it was a different matter altogether. Fargus 
would not dream of calling her Madonna, and she had 
never run her hand over Fargus’s hair and kissed him. 
. . . If only Emilia would come home and give the as- 
sociation her prim young chaperonage. But Emilia 
had gone mad over the study of Eugenics and the prac- 
tice of the simple life, and preferred, as she frankly 
said, being perfectly happy in Minnesota to being 
acutely miserable in New York. Beatrice sometimes 
sighed over her daughter. 

“YT don’t think she takes any interest in a man except 
anatomically,” she said. ‘What’s one to do with a girl 
like that?” 

As no one could give her adequate counsel, she left 
Emilia alone. But she looked forward with dread to 
the time when, with accrued authority, Emilia would be 
heading Movements and sounding Slogans and doing 
all such kinds of commendable yet dreadful things. At 
any rate, Emilia was of no use whatever. And more- 
over, she felt, with a little prick of shame, that should 
Emilia come, she would be most embarrassingly in the 
way. 

Beatrice lived in the Ellison house in Sixty-fifth 
Street, one in a brownstone modest row—suggestive of 
Bloomsbury, or an old by-water of Kensington, where 
once the gentry had their unostentatious habitation. 
On the other side of the door, however, there was re- 
vealed a house spacious and dignified ; large rooms, with 
curtained doorways, opened in to one another in pleas- 
ant vistas. Most of the furniture and pictures and 
statuary were of a bygone age, for when Emilia occa- 
sionally slept a night there, she was of the third gener- 
ation of Ellisons who had done so. 

“If I were you, Mother,” she said once, “I’d scrap the 


BEATRICE 197 


whole of this mouldy stuff—it’s reeking with germs— 
and refurnish the place hygienically with properly 
chosen scientific colours.” 

““When it comes into your possession, my dear,” said 
Beatrice, “you can do what you like. But while I’m 
alive, I like to look round and feel that somewhere in the 
world there’s something to show that there’s something 
at the back of us which money can’t buy.” 

“All right, when you’re crumpled up with ty- 
phoid 2 

“People aren’t crumpled up with typhoid. You’re 
mixing it with cholera. Besides, the sanitation of the 
house is the last word in modernity.” 

Emilia bit her lip—this was two years before, when 
she had just started into the rosy flush of her Eugenic 
career. 

Thus it will be seen that Beatrice held the old- 
fashioned house in sentimental affection. Of course, 
it was dark and stiff, and a row of eighteenth-century 
ancestral samplers in the drawing-room, surmounted 
by a full-length portrait of Alexander Hamilton, 
robbed a wall of artistic joy; but, besides being com- 
fortable, it sounded, as one might say, an urbane proc- 
lamation. . . . Of course, also, after a time it got on 
a sensitive modern woman’s nerves. She missed the 
self-expression to which she had given free scope in 
her houses in Florence and Dinard and her little flat in 
Paris. Three months of New York, too, sufficed her. 
At the end of that time, her mind drenched with plays 
and operas and music and startling social dramas and 
great finance and the inner whirlpool of politics, she 
usually longed for the peace and grace of her Floren- 
tine home on the slopes of Fiesole. 

The winter went on, and the set of rooms at the top 
of the house, one with a good studio light which An- 





198 PERELLA 


thony might have occupied, remained empty. And she 
felt peculiarly lonely in the gloomy place, in spite of 
the myriad calls on her time and her daily touch with 
the young man either by voice over the telephone, or 
by personal meeting in her own house or elsewhere. 

Once when she felt the usual call of Florence she said 
to him: 

““Flave you ever thought that, one of these days soon, 
I must go back to Europe?” 

“I’ve tried to put it out’of my mind, as one does in- 
evitable things,” said he. “For God’s sake don’t talk 
of it till the day comes. Then ring me up, and say: 
‘I’m sailing to-night.’ ” 

She smiled. ‘We'll have a little longer run in New 
York.” 

February still found her lingering. The January 
snows had melted, and milder air whispered the first 
promise of spring. Whether blizzards sweeping down 
from Arctic wastes would turn March into a torment, 
no man could know. In February the sky was blue 
and the sun shone and the road to Cornelius Adams’s 
comfortable house on Long Island was pleasant and the 
week-ends there an illusion of the South. 

Now, Cornelius Adams was a half-bachelor or semi- 
widower, seeing that he had a wife, a Detroit lady, who 
found that she could only live in Copenhagen. As 
Copenhagen bored the good Cornelius to death, and as 
she never expected him to go there, they had not met 
for a couple of years; but all the same, they were a de- 
voted pair, and the marriage was the happiest thing 
imaginable. He took her intellectual dryness—she 
was bent on becoming an authority on old Scandinavian 
literature—and her scorn of coquetry and professed 
dislike of children, humorously; and, as she was per- 
fectly contented, went along his own agreeable and 


BEATRICE 199 


often, no doubt, secret paths, with no offence to deco- 
rum. ‘The amiable man had, at any rate, a genius for 
friendship. For Beatrice Ellison he would have fought 
any flame-snorting dragon you pleased. She went to 
him in her troubles with the eight-ninths open heart 
of the woman who consults a confessor. He had, as it 
may have been indicated, given his friendship, just be- 
cause he liked him, to the young man, Anthony Blake. 
As he gathered from her confidence that Beatrice was 
sighing for the companionship of Anthony, whom she 
could not house with her in New York, and as he took 
for granted Anthony’s worship of his Madonna, he had 
instituted week-end parties in his Long Island home to 
which the pair, with a sprinkling of odd guests, were 
invited. In the hard weather he could provide them 
with skating and sleighing and even a small toboggan 
run. ‘These week-end visits were Beatrice’s happiest 
days in America. Before she slept, it was a silly com- 
fort to her to know that Anthony was under the same 
roof; awaking, she looked forward to the bright face 
and the smile and the laughing glance round and the 
hasty kiss; in the evenings she looked forward to the few 
mancuvred moments of privacy before they retired, 
and the gentler kiss beyond the range of spydom; the 
“sood night, Madonna” and the “good night, my dear,” 
and the sight of him below, as she paused on the turn of 
the stair, gallant, waving her a last salute of hand and 
lips. 

She was happy in an idiotic way ; and her sound sense 
told her that the way was idiotic. She was forty-one, 
fifteen years older than he; but she did not look it or 
feel it. Her glass showed her a woman whom the world 
called beautiful. She had cared for skin and hair and 

figure, in the modern, matter-of-course way among 
women of her class, just as she had cared for teeth and 


200 PERELLA 


finger nails. And she was in the resplendent health of 
her twenties. What did the years matter? Her heart 
was fresh. She had mourned for ten years the eld- 
erly husband who had been her friend, which, after all, 
was adequate suttee to expect of any woman. The most 
virtuous and honoured widows of her acquaintance had 
remarried after a conventional twelve-month or so. 
The frozen sap of ten years re-worked in her veins. 
Why shouldn’t it? And yet . . . these quivering mo- 
ments were so sweet and delicate, holding an unutter- 
able poetic charm. Could they only last in their pres- 
ent perfection, she would ask for nothing more. So, at 
least, she told herself; and, hammering into her brain 
the asseveration, she grew almost to believe it. 


On the Sunday of a February week-end at Marjoram 
Farm, on Long Island, they sat together in the en- 
trance lounge where, under a high chimney-piece, great 
four-foot logs of unsplit pine were burning. Through 
the casemented windows opposite could be seen a pale 
blue sky mottled by pleasant clouds, and an effect of 
mild and gentle sunshine. The two or three other mem- 
bers of the house-party had trudged off to church. 
Cornelius, very amateur farmer, had gone off to look, 
with an air of wisdom, at Rhode Island turkeys and 
white Wyandottes and a litter of Berkshire pigs, whose 
grandparents had been brought from England. An- 
thony had breakfasted late, with hearty appetite, and 
had waited with a book for Beatrice to descend. And 
she had come down, fresh, slim and graceful, her dark 
blue eyes shining under the mass of black hair that clus- 
tered about her brows. 

“You here, Anthony? Why haven’t you taken ad- 
vantage of the beautiful morning?” 

“Madonna,” said he, “‘you are the morning.” 


BEATRICE 201 


What woman would not be glad to kiss a happy 
young man who had made such a pretty speech? She 
passed by the table on which he had thrown his book, 
glanced at it idly, and put it down again. It was 
Kinglake’s “Eothen.” She sat down. 

“Do you like it?” 

“Does one like Chambertin of an historic vintage?” 

She proclaimed her joy in his appreciation of a book, 
one of her favourites, now half-forgotten; a book of un- 
dying beauty. So few people nowadays seemed to have 
time for the beauty of a past age, and missed whatever _ 
there was of beauty in the present. They discussed the 
points in agreeable sympathy. 

“Which reminds me,” she said at last, “of my dear 
friend, Silvester—Professor Gayton, yon know. If he 
heard us now he’d be calling us his disciples. I’ve just 
had a letter from him.” 

Anthony politely hoped that he was well. 

*“He’s more than well. He’s radiantly happy. He’s 
married.” 

- “Married!” cried Anthony. ‘Why, he must be get- 
ing on for seventy.” 

“Silly! I happen to know that he’s fifty-five.” 

He might be anything, Anthony conceded. He 
asked idly, not very greatly interested in the matrimo- 
nial affairs of Professor Gayton: ‘“Who’s the lady?” 

But Beatrice, woman-like, was, on the contrary 
vastly interested. The permutations and combinations 
of human destinies never presented anything more ro- 
mantic. <A little girl painter, daughter of an old 
friend, breaks her arm when he’s helping her to land on 
slippery steps in Venice, has nowhere to go to for Chris- 
tian care, but to his flat in the Viale Milton; arm so 
smashed up that she will never paint again; a waif upon 
the world; the most wonderful and adorable waif that 


202 PERELLA 


ever fell out of fairyland; and so he had married 
NEP ys 2 

“Why, what’s the matter with you?” 

She broke off suddenly, conscious of him staring at 
her with wondering eyes. 

“Good God!” he cried, losing his head for a moment, 
‘you don’t mean to say he has married Perella?” 

“Perella? Yes. That’s the girl’s romantic name. 
Do you know her?” 

Under her quick flash he recovered his nerve. He 
laughed. He had to Jaugh—disarmingly. 

“Of course I know her. She was one of the inmates 
of the Pension Toselli. A copyist. A dear little girl.” 

“Why haven’t I heard of her before from either of 
you?” asked Beatrice. 

“It never occurred to me to mention her,” he said, 
lighting a cigarette. “And as for Gayton—well, I 
suppose the question didn’t arise until this romantic sit- 
uation. It’s a bit fantastic, you know,” he went on 
pleasantly. “For, though you say he’s only fifty-five, 
yet, at the most, she can only be four and twenty. So 
there’s over thirty years’ difference.” 

“Well, well, that’s their look-out,” said Beatrice, in 
a reflective tone that sounded immense relief in An- 
thony’s agitated ears. “I’m only thinking of Silvester. 
If she’s a decent girl.” 

Anthony could afford to be generous. 

“Oh! she’s the gentlest thing that ever happened. . 
Tiny. Half a head shorter than he. They'll make a 
funny couple. But she was so awfully in earnest over 
her art—this thing that’s happened to her is a tragedy 
—but I know what you’re thinking of. I’m sure she 
couldn’t let him down.” 

“Tf she did,” said Beatrice, “with one of the best 


BEATRICE 203 


men God ever created to look after her, she’d deserve 
to be struck by lightning.” 

Anthony’s quick brain worked towards a position of 
security. 

“I’m sure I mentioned her at least once to you,” he 
said quite truthfully. “When I told you about the 
Professor’s party last year, at the Scoppio del Carro.” 

She smiled. “I meet so many people in the course 
of a year, that you can’t expect me to remember those 
I only hear of.” She looked into the fire. “Anyhow,” 
she said at last, “I’m delighted—I was so afraid—one 
never knows—I’m delighted to learn that my dear Sil- 
vester hasn’t made a fool of himself.” 

At that moment entered their host, golf-clad, beam- 
ing. 

“My God! You must come and see them. Pink as 
the dawn—each a little rose-tinted Aurora. The po- 
etry of suction.” | 

“What’s the man talking about?” asked Beatrice. 

“Pigs,” cried Cornelius, radiantly vehement. 

They went out to the Carlton-Ritz stye, where lay the 
black Berkshire sow with the complacent smile of the 
millionaire mother and the spoilt piglets of fortune 
breakfasting voraciously. 

Anthony escaped as soon as he could to the solitude 
of his bedroom, where he walked about in a dizzy sort of 
way, with his hands over his eyes. A young man who 
had promised an elfin lady a palace and a throne of 
gold and a muster of peacocks, he had a lot to think 
about. : , 

And he could not understand why it hurt like the 
devil to think of Perella as a married woman. 


CHAPTER XIII 


Marcu came. There were blizzards in New York and 
violets in Tuscany. Beatrice had not stayed so long 
in the Ellison house for years. She began to regard it 
as a sedate and not too modern sepulchre. The climate 
of New York had never agreed with her. She was nerv- 
ous, depressed, drained of vitality. A slight, feverish 
cold keeping her in bed for a few days necessitated the 
attendance of her doctor. He advised her to get out 
of the nerve-racking place as quickly as possible, and 
go and rest among her spring flowers in Fiesole. No 
rushing across the ocean in Super-Gigantics for hectic 
weeks in London and Paris, before settling down; but 
she must take a comfortable boat by the southern route 
to Genoa, whence she must head straight for Florence. 
In his quick, American way he proposed to instruct 
Fargus there and then to make the necessary arrange- 
MOENESS is 

The first recurrent blast of winter had sent Cornelius 
shivering across the Atlantic. He had urged her com- 
panionship, as they had made an almost unconscious 
friendly pact to go backwards and forwards together. 
He had been a trifle impatient, knowing the pikestaff- 
plain reason of her lingering. Of course he gave her 
no notion of his knowledge. She was not a woman 
whose confidence even so close a friend as Cornelius 
Adams could dare to force. He left her with an in- 
jured air, protesting his rough luck at being compelled, 
after all these years, to make the abominable voyage 


alone. She professed to pity him in his desperate 
204. 


BEATRICE 205 


plight, and laughed at him without mercy. For the 
first time he saw the young man, Anthony Blake, 
through jaundiced spectacles. 

Beatrice recovered from her cold and still hesitated. 
The blizzard turned out to be a fortnight’s freak. 
Mild weather returned, and there were, statistically, 
more violets in New York than in Tuscany. A dear 
childhood’s friend coming to visit her, cried: “My 
dear, you’re looking like nothing on earth; you’re worn 
out. You must get away for achange.” Whereupon, 
fear entering into her soul, she denied the door to An- 
_thony for a couple of days. Then the Fates, the great 
Dramatists, who know the value of cumulative effect, 
contrived a cable informing her that the Florence ga- 
rage and a wing of the villa had been burned down. 
From that moment, until the steamer slowly moved 
away from the quay, Fargus’s existence had less rela- 
tion to life than to a nightmare. | 

On the day of her decision Anthony was summoned to 
dinner. ‘There was no help for it. The time had come 
at last. Back to her burning house she must go. 

“IT suppose you must,” said he, helplessly. ‘I’ve 
been dreading the inevitable, as I’ve told you.” 

He stood, a very genuine picture of misery. 

“Will it make such a lot of difference to you?” 

“I’ve lived for nine months by you and through you, 
and I can’t imagine what life will be like when you’re 
not there to colour it. I don’t want to be absurd and 
say insincere things. . . . I know that you won’t for- 
get me when you’re away and that you know I won’t 
forget you . . . but I can’t say I'll be happy here all 
alone. I shan’t be. Ill be miserable.” 

“And so shall I,”’ sighed Beatrice. 

“Really?” 

“Oh, my dear, don’t you know?” 


206 PERELLA 


The break in her voice was one of those trivial things 
on which the Fates rely in their sardonic bedevilment 
of human destinies. She gleamed near him in an old 
gold gown, very beautiful, desirous, alluring. The 
close embrace in which they stood for some moments was 
a matter of common instinct. Passion spoke mutely in 
the joined lips. 

She freed herself from him half reluctantly, and they 
looked at each other in the shy, glad shame of mutual 
confession. The delicate idyll of daily kissing had 
glowed into a sudden splendour. 

She said, turning idly to a silver box, and taking 
from it a cigarette which she threw back again: 

“That makes it all the more difficult, doesn’t it?” 

He sprang forward. “I’m sorry—I st 

She faced him, smiling. ‘‘Why?” 

He took her in his arms again, and kissed her. She 
murmured: 

“Sorry now?” 

“Not a bit,” said he. 

Baratelli, the Florentine Major Domo, announced 
dinner. They followed him, hand in hand. She felt 
very young and radiantly happy. ‘They sat down in 
the discreetly lit, old-fashioned, oak-panelled dining- 
room, she at the head of the table, he at her side. It 
was delightful to have him there in his new quality of 
declared lover ; but the formal ministrations of Baratelli 
and the footman were provokingly superfluous. At the 
back of her mind swam lunatic regret that they were 
not all alone together in some little far-away inn, so 
that they could whisper loverwise and drink out of the 
same glass, as she had read of in Gallic romance. 

Yet they pledged each other in an old and true cham- . 
pagne, of which a good stock still lay deep and in- 
violable in the Ellison cellars, and, in spite of public 





BEATRICE 207 


ceremonial, dined in the happy comfort of intimacy. 

It was only later, when they talked in her own little 
boudoir, off the main drawing-room, thé one room which 
she had redeemed from Ellison austerity, that the Seven 
Devils of Civilized Convention stalked in between them, 
and had their say. And to two honest, honourable, and 
sensitive people, they said it very plainly indeed. 

“So you see, my belovedest dear,” cried Anthony, at 
last, “that we’re up against it.” 

Of course they were. Romance bade them marry out 
of hand, and lead blissful lives defiant of an ironical 
world. But there was a logical fallacy in the counsel. 
It took the bliss for granted. Also, the same world 
which would point deriding fingers, was a pleasant one 
to live in—the only one they knew. A sensuous, prac- 
tically desert island, where they could live wrapped 
up in each other for an indefinite time, was, with the 
wealth at her command, a matter of practical attain- 
ment; but it did not appeal to either of them. They 
must live in stimulating touch with humanity. And 
they must be reasonably happy. 

At one moment of the talk conducted by the aforesaid 
Seven Devils, she said weakly: 

“T wonder whether it would really matter?” 

He proved to her that it would. Even though she 
might be valiant enough to take a husband on whom the 
world looked askance, as a penniless adventurer living 
on his wife’s money and trying to save his face by dab- 
bling in amateur art, and to stand, at first vehement 
in his defence, yet the time would come when the situa- 
tion would get on her nerves. All the more so when her 
husband, as far as he knew himself, was the least 
fortune-hunting rotter in the world—a man who, 
though he didn’t gas about them, had his clean ideals of 
life, his ambitions and his personal dignity. If he ac- 


208 PERELLA 


cepted the situation, he would chafe, for all his love for 
her; and she would know that he chafed. She was of- 
fered the dilemma; to be conscious of her husband either 
as a happy rotter, or a proud man crushed by the in- 
tolerable. 

It took them some time to develop this analysis. 

‘““Money’s a curse,” she cried. 

‘And yet, my dear, if you—in a way through money 
—hadn’t been my lady Paramount of Florence and Di- 
nard, how should I have had the opportunity of falling 
in love with you?” 

She agreed. The whole thing was impossible. Yet 
it was actual. She felt tired. 

“Don’t let’s talk any more to-night. Come and sit 
by me.” 

She lay in a great arm-chair. He threw himself on 
the ground by her knees. Soon his head rested on 
them. Her hands caressed his hair. She loved him 
with all the folly of full womanhood. She knew in him 
a man, honourable and sensitive, commanding her re- 
spect and her admiration. At last she broke a long, 
sweet silence. 

“Oh, my dear, how are we going to get out of this 
dreadful quandary? I want you with me, Anthony, so 
much. . . . You don’t know how I want you.” 

Her voice trailed off into the throb of a whisper. 
With a sudden movement, she clasped his head and drew 
it to her bosom. The boy, lost in her love and her per- 
fume and her loveliness, threw his arms around her, and 
clasped her tight. 

“My God! I want you a million times more.” 

At the back of swooning senses she realized the mo- 
ment of danger and madness. She held his face away 
with both her hands. 

“We can’t... I can’t): . . Pb love yaw sen 


BEATRICE 209 


there’s a way out... a secret marriage. No one 
need ever know . . . until we choose.” She still held 
him and passed her fingers over his eyes. “This can’t 
go on. It’s impossible for both of us.” She kissed 
him hurriedly, and glided out of her chair and stood 
shivering. 

He sprang to his feet; she waved him off. 

“No, no, my dear. The primitive isn’t the way of 
happiness.” 

He approached her with outstretched hands very 
tenderly. All within her reacted to him in a thrill of 
gratitude. She took his hands. 

“Well?” 


“It’s the solution,” said he. 


It was in April that they parted, husband and wife, 
when the great liner slowly carried her away. She 
must go and attend to her burned down house and face 
the expectant European world, and he must stay behind 
and earn his living as a decent man with the hope of 
success. Work lay before him in a shimmering vista. 
By it he must gain name, position, independence, so 
that he could, with head held high, claim, or re-marry 
in the eyes of the world, the exquisite woman that was 
his wife. In the meantime, they had arranged—for 
there are limits to the repression of human nature— 
that he should repeat the last year’s visit to Dinard. 
They lamented sore over the sale of the Ipolysag 
shooting-box. For then there would have been no need 
of Dinard and its necessarily idiotic complications. 

Beatrice sailed away, torn with longing, yet rejoicing 
in the strength that kept the betraying tears from her 
eyes as she waved him farewell from the steamer’s deck. 
The parting was imperative. Things could not be 
etherwise. The position of an idle young man, living 


210 PERELLA 


on a rich woman’s money, and an older woman’s at that 
—there came a hateful twinge—was not that of the 
husband whom a woman could adoringly respect. As 
it was, save for the sweet and secret bond, they were two 
independent human beings, each honourable in the oth- 
er’s eyes, whose private emotional life had nothing to 
do with the world at large. She felt sure that the se- 
cret would be kept. Apart from impersonal officials, 
the only two people who shared it were Fargus and 
Dennever, her confidential maid. Fargus must know, 
for his was the administration of a vast estate, from 
the watching and skilled manipulation of securities, to 
the detail of an imperfect boiler in one of her establish- 
ments. He was a dry, elderly, devoted man who had 
known no other service than her husband’s, and had 
grown grey in hers. Whithersoever he accompanied 
her, he had his own quarters in the house, and lived his 
own bachelor life on a salary of which he could only 
spend the half. The Ellison affairs were his affairs, 
the reason of his existence. He had to know of the 
marriage. Only by a few adust words did he manifest 
to Beatrice the glow in his heart when he learned that 
there were no marriage settlements and no financial 
transactions whatever between his worshipped client 
—for in some such way did he regard his employer— 
and the young man whom she had married. 

And Dennever, from English yeoman stock, who had 
been with her for eighteen years, except for a disas- 
trous two years’ matrimonial interval, was equally de- 
voted. In her elderly ancillary way she surrendered 
to the spell of Anthony who had the gift, at once care- 
less and shrewd, of making himself adored. By the 
end of the short and camouflaged honeymoon on the 
coast of Florida, she was his mother and his aunt and 
his servant and his slave. All of which delighted Bea- 


BEATRICE 211 


trice exceedingly, for the looks of Dennever, in spite of 
matrimonial adventure, were not prepossessing. 

Thus Beatrice faced the world, happy in the knowl- 
edge that her secret was hidden inviolably in the hearts 
of the two people whom it was imperative that she 
should take into her confidence. 


In Florence she found that the garage and only a bit 
of the servants’ quarters had been destroyed. Already, 
owing to the vigilance of Fargus, repairs were in prog- 
ress. ‘There was nothing to worry about. 

She went through her spacious rooms, her own crea- 
tions, and stood by the wide-flung windows, breathing in 
the perfume of pines and all the spring, and looking 
away down below at the dreamy domes and towers of 
Florence, and wondered how she could have lived these 
many months in the fusty old New York house, where 
everything belonged to a crumbling and meaningless 
past, and in which there was nothing of herself. But 
here, in this delicious spaciousness, in this atmosphere 
of exquisite colours and shapes and curves, of startling 
figures of marble, of warmly yet gaily painted bits of 
furniture, of cool plaques of the della Robbias, in shin- 
ing white and blue and yellow—here she recognized the 
reflection of that of herself which had ever craved the 
joy and the freshness and the spirituality of life. She 
sat deliberately in a particular spot in the drawing- 
room where, through the window, could be seen a replica 
of the blue Tuscan background of hundreds of quattro- 
centi painters. That moment alone was worth living 
for. In her happy round she came, in the cool 
morning-room, upon a subject picture of the school 
of Pinturicchio. Silvester had helped her to buy it, 
flattening out the dealer by an authoritative denial of 
its Pinturicchio authenticity. But it was delightful all 


212 PERELLA 


the same, so gay, so brave, with its youths in short 
jackets and perkily feathered caps, and tight vermilion 
hose reaching high above the waist. It was a joyous 
thing. And there, in gallant attitude, on arm out- 
stretched, the other offering his purse to a kneeling 
bearded beggar, stood a youth, the very image of An- 
thony. She laughed happily. With ge such an air 
and a grace Sei he give largesse. 

There had been a day in Florida wheat a longish walk 
having unexpectedly tired her, he had hired a car from 
a eae garage to take her back. The man’s charge 
at the end of the short journey had aroused her indig- 
nation; for, woman of boundless wealth though she was, 
she had kept the sense of values of her none too opulent 
girlhood, and had many a time checked Anthony’s im- 
pulsive extravagance; but Anthony, with just such an 
air and a grace, had waved her away and handed the 
man the seemingly uncounted bills, without discussion. 

Yes, there was Anthony. And she was a very happy 
woman. If he could be there now, by her side, in the 
midst of this dear beauty, in the midst of this emanation 
from her spiritual self, she would faint from happiness 
too intolerable for woman. . . . One can’t have every- 
thing; she had much—oh, so much! . . . Instead of 
sighing, let her praise the God of Bounty. And there 
was Dinard to look forward to. 

Everyone knew that Mrs. Ellison had arrived in 
Florence. ‘There was a telephonic chorus of welcome. 
Old friends claimed her. Cornelius Adams came the 
morning after her arrival and sat, unheralded, figura- 
tively on her doorstep, until it should be her good pleas- 
ure to descend. She swept out to him on the loggia, 
fresh as the spring day. 

“My God!” said he, “what has happened to you?” 

She started back. “Why? What? It’s a beast of 


BEATRICE 213 


a motor-journey from Genoa, but I can’t look as tired 
as all that!” 

“Tired? You silly child, what have you been doing 
with yourself? You look eighteen.” 

She laughed at the exceedingly pleasant announce- 
ment and, for a moment, looked hesitatingly into his 
honest face. Here was a loyal friend who, not only 
might be very useful, but also might be hurt at being 
left in ignorance. 

“Perhaps D’ve been bathing in the Fountain of Ro- 
mance,” she said. | 

His shrewd eyes twinkled. “The devil you have! 
And where’s the other bather ?” 

“In New York, poor fellow. . . . If you tell me I’ve 
been a fool I’ll never speak to you again. Besides, you 
helped it along.” 

“Let me hear all about it.” 

So he heard and commended the pair for their sanity, 
and departed wishing them well. Away from her, he 
may have shaken a wise and dubious and perhaps also a 
sad head. What did the Frenchman say? ‘There are 
many good marriages but no delicious ones.” He 
would not recommend a good marriage such as his own, 
with a wife two thousand miles away. His adored Bea- 
trice deserved more than a taste of the delicious. How- 
ever—he shrugged tolerant shoulders—when two peo- 
ple marry, the conduct of their lives is their own very 
particular and private affair. And he was very fond 
of Anthony, and was gratified by the boy’s determina- 
tion to make good before coming forward as the hus- 
band of Beatrice. All the same, women were mysteri- 
ous beings. 

Amid the clash of telephone wires humming with wel- 
comes, she managed to put a clear call through to the 
apartment in the Viale Milton. Before anyone else 


214 PERELLA 


must she see her dear Silvester and his bride. But the 
answer came that the Commendatore and the Signora 
were away on their travels, God knew whither. They 
had taken a vapore at Naples and all their letters were 
sent to a Steamship Company. Would the Signora 
wait until she found the name and address? 

She waited, rang off and contemplated Silvester’s 
felicitous Odyssey with just a little bit of a pang. She 
remembered the foolish talk with Anthony on the stormy 
day at Dinard. He for the glamour of Pacific Islands; 
she for the spirit-lashing buffetting of the North seas. 
Any kind of old ship on any kind of old sea would be 
heaven to her now, so long as they two Gould be to- 
gether, fearlessly in the eyes of the world. She wrote 
to Silvester. 

“Most fortunate and enviable of mortals,” she be- 
gan, and continued in an allusive strain which, when he 
received the letter at Saragossa, set him greatly won- 
dering. He did not show it to Perella, although he 
tried to share with her every thought he could think; 
for he was a delicate-minded man, and the letter seemed 
to contain some baffling soul-secret of a woman, meant 
for him alone, and therefore sacred. So he tore it up 
and put the small pieces in his jacket pocket, and, Per- 
ella and himself making a short railway journey that 
afternoon, he seized an opportunity when she was not 
looking, and scattered them through the carriage win- 
dow. 

Beatrice confessed her folly most charmingly and 
tenderly to Anthony; and, as there was nothing else to 
do, gave herself up, for the season, to the pleasant life 
of Florence. 


CHAPTER XIV 


Brartrice’s first impression of Perella was that of a 
tongue of flame flickering for a second in the curtained 
doorway of the drawing-room. She was clad in an 
evening frock of vivid tangerine, and one single dia- 
mond flashed pendant on her bosom. A chance light 
caught her great dark eyes, which illuminated an oval 
sensitive face. 

Beatrice, who had risen at Baratelli’s announcement, 
was checked in her advance by the shock of unimagined 
beauty. She had thought of Perella as a little artist- 
girl of no account, whose pathetic adventure had led 
her elderly friend into matrimony—and lo! here was 
she confronted with a will-o’-the-wisp, a luminous 
dragon-fly, a tiny fairy queen of a thing. She ought 
to have borne a wand with a pale green star on the top 
of it. It was an appreciable moment before she be- 
came conscious of the bald head and smiling face of the 
little Professor. 

She greeted the guests with outstretched arms. 

“My dear, I am so glad to have met you at last. 
You must know that your husband is one of my oldest 
and dearest friends.” 

This was in early July, the day after the return to 
Florence of the errant pair. They had traversed Spain 
and France in a leisurely way, and had spent a few 
weeks in London. Beatrice had called at the Viale 
Milton, and, not finding them at home, had bidden them 
to dinner with Cornelius Adams. 

She noticed that Perella wore a silk bandage round 
her right wrist, and gave her left hand in greeting. 


Perella looked up at her shyly. 
215 


216 PERELLA 


“T know. I’ve heard so much about you, Mrs. Elli- 
son.” 

Beatrice turned to Silvester, who wrung and kissed 
her hands. , 

“You ought to be the happiest of men.” 

“J am. Indeed I am, my dear Beatrice,” he cried, 
all aglow. “Ask Perella.” 

Perella met Beatrice’s humorously questioning eyes, 
and a flush came into her cheeks. 

“T do my best to make him so.” 

Cornelius Adams, bluff, florid, was announced, com- 
ing in on their heels. His, too, was the first revelation 
of Perella. He whispered to his hostess: 

“Lucky old devil. She’s fallen from the sky.” 

It had been a day of dismal rain, and the outside air 
was rude and moist. They dined, with curtains cosily 
drawn, in the octagonal antechamber of the great 
dining-room, at a round table lit with shaded lights. 
The walls were soothingly tapestried. 

The men ate happily ; talked of travel, of art, of man- 
ners and customs, of politics. The women joined in 
the easy flow of conversation ; but, whereas the men had 
apparently no thoughts underlying the discussion, the 
two women were conscious of a mutual scrutiny. Bea- 
trice observed Perella with ever-growing and discon- 
certing interest. The girl had some quality of the un- 
seizable. At one moment she gave the impression of a 
bit of flotsam on the waves of chance and, at the next, 
she would flash a gleam of lambent wit which placed 
her as a woman of the world, intelligent, self-possessed. 
Silvester adored her, beyond question. Something far 
stronger than his old-fashioned pernicketty courtesy 
compelled his eternal reference to her in confirmation 
of his statements and opinions. He had found some- 
thing beyond the physical, beyond the charm which a 


BEATRICE 217 


young and beautiful woman can bring into an elderly 
man’s life. He gave the impression of a man who had 
found a spiritual essence towards which he had been 
groping through many lonely years. Beatrice, with 
an older woman’s sigh, envied her youth and fragile 
daintiness. ‘The silk bandage round the dropped wrist 
concealed an appliance that enabled her to make a little 
use of fingers. Even lame manipulation of knife and 
fork had a dainty grace. . . . Beatrice found herself 
hanging on her words, trying to appraise her by them, 
to discover whether she was an enigma or not, and 1: so, 
what was the solution. 

Silvester spoke of things domestic. One reason for 
their long tarrying was the befitting rearrangement of 
the home in the Viale Milton. He had taken over the 
lease of the adjoining flat; he had moved something 
more immovable than Heaven and Earth, that is, an 
Italian landlord, to allow him to fit the place with two 
bathrooms, the only two, he believed, in the whole Viale 
Milton. He had torn down partition walls; he had re- 
partitioned other rooms for servants’ bedrooms. He 
had improved the central heating. His good architect 
friend Grisi’s hair had grown white during the struggle. 

“And all for me,” said Perella, “who take up no 
space whatever, and could be quite happy strung up 
in a cage in the vestibule. He spoils me”—she turned 
to her hostess—“‘I’ve lived sur la blanche all my life, 
and I don’t know what to do with so many rooms.” 

Beatrice laughed. ‘You can furnish them.” 

“Silvester says my idea of furnishing a room is one 
uncomfortable chair, a bit of colour in a cushion, and a 
picture. I’ve had a sort of Topsy-like bringing-up. 
To this day I don’t know how many pairs of sheets 
ought to go to a well-conducted bed. I’m afraid he'll 
have a lot to put up with.” 


218 PERELLA 


“Ton’t you believe her,” cried Silvester. ‘“She’s a 
marvel. There’ll be two rooms furnished by her en- 
tirely from Spain. They’ll be gems.” 

“Look at all the shoddy stuff I should have bought, 
if it hadn’t been for you.” 

“That’s a different matter, my dear,” said Silvester 
gently. “A question of expertism. But you never 
wished to buy a thing that wasn’t in itself beau- 
tiful.” 

‘And it nearly broke his heart,” said Perella with a 
happy laugh, “when he had to tell me that a thing I 
fell in love with had been turned out the week before 
last from a factory in Toledo.” 

“The destruction of illusions is the terrible side of my 
profession,” said Silvester. 

“But he has his own way of doing it,” said Perella. 

After dinner Beatrice left the men to themselves, and 
took Perella into the drawing-room, spacious and ex- 
quisite in its subdued light, with here and there in cor- 
ners the mysterious gleam of statuary. 

“I’ve so often wondered what you were like,” she said. 

“T too,” said Perella. “But then people have de- 
scribed you to me—and x 

“And what?” 

“Their descriptions have been so lame and stupid. 
It’s my way to picture things, and I couldn’t picture 
you—not as you are.” 

“What did you think I was like?” Beatrice asked, 
amused. 

“T thought—do forgive me—but I thought you were 
older.” 

“White hair neatly piled up a4 l’Américaine, and rim- 
less pince-nez, and plump little hands?” 

“T don’t know,” said Perella; “but I never dreamed 
you were so young and beautiful.” 





BEATRICE 219 


“May I return the compliment, my dear,” said Bea- 
trice. 

The women’s eyes met and held the gaze for a frac- 
tion of a second, and each felt her own little pang of 
suspicion and surmise. Between their eyes flitted the 
vague, shadowy shape of Anthony. 

In an instant Beatrice recovered balance, and she 
spoke of Silvester, his gentleness, his sympathy, his 
loyalty to ideals. 

“You needn’t tell me,” said Perella, half-wistfully. 
“T know only too well. I suppose you know all about 
it, Mrs. Ellison?” 

“Indeed I don’t.” 

Perella lifted her right arm. “I was down and out, 
you see. My means of livelihood gone. It was the 
only thing I could do—and I loved it! I cried my eyes 
out over it—never to hold a brush again seemed the end 
of all things. . . . And then he was so perfectly won- 
derful te 

“And the romance began,” said Beatrice, with a 
smile. 

“And goes on,” said Perella. 

A footman brought in coffee and liqueurs and ciga- 
rettes. When he had gone, Beatrice said, after a pre- 
liminary puff or two of smoke: 

**We have a friend in common, I believe. Anthony 
Blake.” 

Perella started. “Why yes. We lived in the same 
Pension. ‘That’s how I got to hear of you in the first 
place.” 

Beatrice leaned back lazily in her chair, with an iron- 
ical smile. | 

“Did he give you the impression that I was old and 
frumpy?” 

“Oh, no,” Perella protested, with a subconscious 





220 PERELLA 


sense of mendacity. ‘He always said you were charm- 
ing. I didn’t see much of him,” she lied hurriedly. “I 
was busy all day with my copying, and he had his work 
to do, and knew so many people here.” 

“Did you like him?” 

Perella hated the clamp of ice that gripped her heart. 
But she smiled bravely. 

“Of course I liked Lan Everybody did. He was so 
gay. He went to America. Do you know how he’s 
getting on?” 

“Very well, I think. Mr. Adams has been a very 
good friend to him.” 

“Pm glad,” said Perella, Jentueele 

The men came in. The talk was impersonal and in- 
telligent. 

Bidding good-bye to Perella, Beatrice wished her 
good luck with her house-keeping. Perella laughed. 

“Once I had a dreadful dream that I was supposed to 
conduct the Queen’s Hall Orchestra, and I scarcely 
knew a note of music. I just remember lifting up my 
baton. It was awful. I feel like that now.” 

“‘She needn’t,” said Silvester, in his funny little pre- 
cise way. “If called upon, she could lead an army into 
battle.” 

Cornelius Adams laughed his great laugh, and 
clapped him on the shoulder. 

“And bring off the victory. I’m sure of it. Good 
night, Mrs. Gayton. ‘Take my advice. Refuse to be- 
lieve he has ever grown up, treat him kindly, and he’ll 
eat out of your hand.” 

Beatrice, alone, clapped her hands before her eyes, 
and gave herself up to tormenting wonder. How could 
Anthony and Perella, thrown together in the promiscu- 
ity of a small pension, have failed to be attracted one 
to the other? She knew her Anthony, sensitively re- 


BEATRICE 221 


sponsive to every current of beauty and delight. How 
had he not yielded to her extraordinary fascination? 
Yet he had spoken of her only in terms of casual com- 
mendation that were almost echoed by Perella herself. 
She had no reason to consider the subtle added charm 
with which six months of a new and serene life had in- 
vested Perella. The half-wild, penny-counting waif, 
thrown hither and thither about the world, bad!y-fed, 
over-strained, cheaply and flimsily clad, whose main at- 
traction lay in her pathetic fragility, and the uncon- 
scious appeal for kindness in her great eyes, had devel- 
oped, under fresh conditions, into a ripe woman of curi- 
ous beauty. For the first time in her existence she had 
been surrounded by all the little luxuries of life. Of no 
great wealth, Silvester was yet a man of reasonable for- 
tune. His personal expenditure during the long years, 
having been that of the modest scholar and gentleman, 
he had saved automatically. Before his marriage he 
had made some enquiry into his financial affairs, and 
the result had afforded him childish delight. On Per- 
ella he could lavish all that the world could reasonably 
hold of luxury. So the physically delicate plant that 
was Perella, found itself under glass, tended with lov- 
ing care, and bloomed into exquisite flower. 

All this Beatrice, wondering, could not know. She 
could not know that Anthony had never dreamed of her 
as she had entered the drawing-room that night, a 
tongue of flame; that the peach-bloom of her face was a 
phenomenon of a new Perella; that Anthony had never 
seen her in a Paris gown asi a diamond pendant 
gleaming on her warm neck. 

And the other amazing Pr a fhe problem was that 
she had frequented Anthony for months without giving 
him a sentimental thought. Her Anthony, over whom 
all the women in Dinard had done their best to make 


222 PERELLA 


fools of themselves! Just as she, herself, had done. 
She shrugged her shoulders. Eh, bien! Tant mieua. 
What was all her worry about? She laughed. Yet 
she could not but ascribe to Perella a certain obtuse- 
ness, a lack of fine womanly emotion, that had rendered 
her indifferent to Anthony, and had thrown her into 
the arms of the delightful, but peculiarily unromantic 
Silvester. In a humorous way she was idiotically angry 
with her for not having fallen in love with Anthony. 

And then came the warm gush of pride which she 
nursed in her heart till she fell happily asleep. Wasn’t 
all this a proof of Anthony’s love? 


Perella rested her head against her husband’s shoul- 
der as they drove home in the old motor-car that had 
waited for her, it seemed infinite ages ago, with a pur- 
ple handkerchief spread over the wheel, outside the 
Uffizi. 

“Tired, dear?” 

“SA little.” 

“You can have a good month’s rest, at any rate.” 

“Oh, it’s not the travelling. I love it.” 

He put his arm round her. 

“What is it then?” 

“T don’t know. Loss of magnetism, perhaps.” 

“Didn’t you like Mrs. Ellison?” he asked, in a voice 
of some concern. 

She gave a little reassuring laugh. 

“Of course. She is beautiful and charming and as 
kind as can be. But there’s something. . . . One must 
learn to live up to her. Oh, not to her wealth,” she 
added quickly. ‘That would be silly and snobbish. 
But to her personality.” She took his hand and meas- 
ured off the nail of his little finger. ‘‘Without know- 
ing it she makes one feel that high.” 


.) 


BEATRICE 223 


His arm tightened round her. “You aren’t much 
bigger,” he laughed. “Still, seriously speaking, Bea- 
trice would be dreadfully hurt—she’s so straight and 
simple—if she thought a 

“Oh, no,” Perella protested. “It’s nothing to do 
with her. It’s me.” 

“Yet you went through all sorts of strange Paris 
and London drawing-rooms without turning a hair.” 

“T was there as the wife of the great Professor Gay- 
ton, and I was so proud that I didn’t care a row of 
beans.” | 

“And to-night?” he asked gently. ‘‘Where did the 
difference come in?” He drew her close to him, and, 
without waiting for a reply— ‘Well, well, I think I 
see,” he said. “It’s only because Beatrice Ellison is 
such a dear friend that she wanted to make sure that 
your old husband was quite happy, and, of course, you 
felt the reaction. But she’s convinced now, bless her 
heart—you’ll find her the most lovable of women. Oh, 
no! I’ve never been in love with her.” 

“Why?” she whispered, idly. 

“The gods were good, and kept me heart-whole for 

ou.” 


“Oh, the dear, silly gods!” said Perella. 





She lay awake far into the night, conscience-pricked 
by ever so little a sin of disingenuousness. She had let 
Silvester remain happy in his diagnosis of her fatigue. 
But how could she tell him of his error? It was a gro- 
tesque impossibility. She had never imagined a Mrs. 
Ellison so radiant, so compelling. Before her she had 
shrivelled into nothingness. Why should Anthony 
have given her a thought when this commanding lady 
had bidden him follow? ‘Quite old,” had Anthony re- 
ported her; and the neat white hair and plump hands 


Q24 PERELLA 


of Beatrice’s sally had literally been part of her con- 
ception. Why had he persisted in the maintenance of 
this impression? ‘There could be only one answer. 
She flamed in discomfort of soul. Mrs. Ellison was 
young; young enough, at least, for all that mattered; 
when one possessed that regal beauty and that signifi- 
cance of personality, what were a few years more or 
less? 

Everything intuitive, instinctive in her womanhood, 
showed her Anthony’s inevitable path. To feel bit- 
terly towards him or to the woman who had taken him 
from her were disloyalty to the husband to whom she 
owed all the beauty and comfort and, perhaps, the mere 
continuance of her life. 

She rose, entered the adjoining room, and turned on 

the switch of a shaded lamp. Silvester was fast asleep. 
A glint of light fell upon the bald patch of his head. 
She paused irresolute. It would be silly to wake him 
—to tell him what? ‘That she was tired? ‘That she 
was frightened? ‘That she needed reassurance that he 
alone of men filled her soul’s horizon? That would 
mean confession of the poor little pitiful story. . 
To what end? . .. Were he awake she could plead 
mere Bee iceeiees nae a pretty desire for companion- 
ship. But Silvester, ever dogged by the horror of in- 
somnia, was sunk in the slumber of a child. Noiselessly 
she returned, and went back to bed. ‘The little wifely 
act, however, soothed her nerves, and, before she fell 
asleep, she went through the tale as she had done a 
hundred times before, of Silvester’s goodness and his 
wonder. 

Yet, how they had eventually come together, she 
could ea: ever determine. For a long time after 
the tragic announcement of her painter’s doom, she 
had stayed on in this sweet and fragrant place. She 


BEATRICE 225 
had been blown thither like a fallen leaf, and, like a leaf 


she had felt powerless to move of her own volition. 

‘To-morrow I must really go back to the Pension 
Toselli,” she would declare. 

And Silvester, in his primly affectionate way, would 
find some good reason for her staying on for another 
week. There was the massage of her wrist, which 
could not possibly be administered in the confined pre- 
cincts of the Pension Toselli. There was the verifica- 
tion of a hundred statements marked in blue pencil on 
Professor Brabiani’s typescript, which could easily be 
made in his own library by a Perella pining for occu- 
pation. There was his own dreaded novelty of loneli- 
ness when she should depart. . 

“But why should you be “eee me in all this lux- 
ury?” she would protest. 

“Haven’t I told you how much I owed to your fa- 
ther?” 

And once, in counter to such a reply, she said, with 
a little ironical curl] of her lips: 

“T don’t believe you. Father was a wonderful man 
—but he wasn’t an altruist domg good actions for the 
sake of abstract goodness. You are. You’re just 
keeping me here because you think I can’t earn my liv- 
ing any longer. You think you ought to adopt me. 
You would as soon think of throwing a baby, put on 
your doorstep, out of window, as of letting me go back 
and earn my living. But I can earn my living. Tl 
learn to paint with my left hand. There have been 
people who painted with their toes. Haven’t you told 
me of the famous armless copyist of Antwerp? Or I 
can teach. Or I can get a job as a secretary. I can 
correct anybody’s faults in English, French and Ital- 
ian. And I’ve got a strong left hand that’s got to do 
what it’s told.” 


226 PERELLA 


“And supposing I tell that strong left hand,” said 
Silvester, taking hold of it, “that it’s got to stay here 
and be my strong right hand?” 

Even then—searching her memory—she had no idea 
of the diffident little man’s purpose. 

“If it comes to that, dear Professor,” she said, with a 
laugh, “I’d work my fingers to the bone for you.” 

He sighed, in what she thought at the time was 
rather a silly way. 

The light had broken on her very gradually. She 
had gone through ordeals that had centred her mind 
on her own little suffering and chance-driven self. 
There had been Anthony, the gay lover who had ridden 
away with her heart; there had been brave struggle 
and the painful replacement of a new organ; there had 
been the ecstatic surrender to the souls of the old paint- 
ers who saw God, and proclaimed Him in terms of Im- 
mortal Beauty. And then had come the ax of destiny, 
cutting her off from her communion with these celestial 
onesie... : 

It was not only a shattered arm that had kept her 
invalid and fevered for all those weeks in the calm, 
Primitive-hung bedroom of the Viale Milton. 

A wraith of a fragment of humanity had risen from 
the sick-bed. Only half her faculties had been able to 
cope with the newly presented actualities of life... . 

How the knowledge came, stealing through her being, 
like far-off music, at first dimly heard, and then coming 
nearer and nearer, she could not tell. It was all so 
sweet and so delicate. First the John Annaway myth 
faded away into nothingness. It was too outrageous 
for a Twentieth-Century child to swallow. And then, 
intelligent sceptic, she began to doubt the abstract al- 
truism of her gentle protector. But how and when 
set in the warm current of her blood whenever he ap- 


BEATRICE 227 


proached, she did not know. All she remembered was, 
that something deliciously ironical flickered within her 
when he continued to invent irrational reasons for her 
staying in the Viale Milton. 

And then, of course, one day it all came out, and 
she was astonished to realize that she was not in the 
least surprised. 

He had chanced upon her weeping over a futile effort 
to paint with her left hand. On his entrance in the 
room which he had assigned to her as studio and bou- 
doir, she rose, dabbed her wet eyes hurriedly, and tried 
to smile. But he said: 

“My child, you’re crying. Good God! What for? 
I'd give my life to save you from shedding a tear.” 

He advanced with outstretched arms, and somehow 
the next thing she knew she was sobbing helplessly in 
his embrace, and he, equally helplessly, was patting her 
on the back. 

“There, there, you’ve only got to say a little word, 
and you need never have a care, if I can help it, in the 
world again.” 

And, of course, driven leaf that she was, she said the 
little word. 

She adored him with all the fervour of veneration and 
gratitude; and therein was mingled terror lest she 
should fall below his pathetic conception of her worth. 
Had he not been the sweet and gentle soul that was 
Silvester Gayton, she would have gone forth bravely 
and faced an impossible world. But there was his kind 
arm protecting her from the abyss; and he had been 
markedly miserable of late, and now he proposed for 
himself a means of happiness. That he should want 
her was a lunatic affair of his own; that she should not 
accept, surrender, be to him what he desired, was past 
thought. 


228 PERELLA 


He took her to Betti’s for dinner that evening, and 
ordered the oldest bottle of champagne in the cellar. 

“I’ve half forgotten Life,’ he declared. ‘“‘You’ve 
never seen it. We’re going to see it together.” 

They finished half the bottle between them and went 
home exultant in a sense of the joy of living. 

Perella remembered that engagement evening very 
tenderly. He had thrown off the burden of the years, 
and had left his scholarship in a lumber-room. He was 
young, eager, full of pretty and silly courtesies. ‘The 
stool for her feet; the chair at the table behind her re- 
moved, lest she should be contaminated by the ungra- 
cious back of a chance Tedesco; the bunch of snow- 
drops from God knows where which he had ordered to 
be placed before her under pain of his eternal anathema 
of Betti and all his food. . . . 

And, after their marriage, this sweet and anxious 
courtesy had persisted through every hour of their 
travels. His attitude was that of the unrecorded lover 
of the princess in Hans Andersen’s story, who might 
have said: 

“My dear, I hope you’re not inconvenienced by that 
terrible dried pea beneath the seven mattresses, which 
are all that this dreadful country can provide for you.” 

She had a personal maid; a skilled Italian girl who 
spoke English and French and, at first, seemed to have 
her being in a phantasmagoria of lingerie and toilette 
appliances. She also looked after Silvester’s clothes. 

One day Perella said to her husband, in despair: 

“For God’s sake, let me do something for you! Let 
me mend your socks. That I really can do.” 

“Socks, my dear?” he queried, with a pucker of the 
brow. “I’ve not worn darned socks for years. I buy 
the very cheapest I can, and whenever I see a hole in 
the toe, I throw them into the waste-paper basket.” 


BEATRICE 229 


“You'll never do that again as long as you live,” said 
Perella. 

Sensitive and adaptive, she attuned herself to the 
new conditions. She learned, or, more rightly, in- 
vented many tricks of wifely service, at which he never 
ceased to marvel. He proclaimed himself an unworthy 
sultan. 

She had been happy, free of care, her alert spirit 
ever eager to catch whatever conditions of beauty, of 
poignancy, of laughter, were afforded by their comfort- 
able Odyssey. 

“T shall never accustom myself to it,” he said one 
day. “It’ll be a perpetual wonder.” 

“What?” she laughed. 

“That God should have given me for a wife the most 
vibrating human instrument on His wonderful earth.” 

She had been happy, too, in all the sacred intimacies 
of their union. She had given freely, gratefully. 
How often, in the dead of night, awaking from some 
vague dream of desolation, had it not been comfort un- 
speakable to reach out a timid foot and find warm pro- 
tecting contact! 

She was so safe. She had a vague memory of some- 
thing she had read in Shakespeare about a woman so 
sheltered by a man that the airs of heaven should not 
blow too roughly on her. She worshipped him. But 
for her own Puckish sense of humour, she would have 
made daily obeisance to him as to a divinity. 

Then, their wandering over, when they entered the 
great world and she took her place, with proud little 
head held high, as the wife of a distinguished man, she 
adored him all the more for commanding her trium- 
phant progress. She had been presented at Court; she 
had worn ostrich feathers in her hair and an embroid- 
ered train. She had heard a man, all over gold lace, 


230 PERELLA 


whisper, “Enter Titania.” . . . All kinds of nightmare 
people with titles, and race-horses, and palaces, had 
shown her deference, welcome, affection. . . . Haddo 
Thwaites, the sculptor, whom she had met long ages 
ago at the Scoppio del Carro, gave a dinner-party for 
her in his Kensington Wonder House, where she met 
the simple great ones of the land. ‘There she tasted 
the sweets of flattery, hailed as an artist, a personage, 
and a beautiful woman. Duncan Lowe, whom she had 
regarded breathlessly as the arch-priest of modern 
painting, carried her off, almost then and there, and 
painted her portrait in a fervour of inspiration for next 
year’s salon. 

Each day brought its anodyne for regrets or past 
sorrows. ‘To the great artist, haunted by dreams of 
masterpieces, the dropped wrist would have been trag- 
edy of tragedies; to the humble copyist, free from the 
care of earning her livelihood, and with her sense of 
beauty untouched, and her past experience a key to the 
mystery of the grand old technique, what did it matter? 
And then, besides, how could she feel pain in the atmos- 
phere of devotion in which she had her being? Often 
the bright day passed without her remembering that, 
outside her charmed sphere, stood a man who had once 
made her suffer very terribly. 

And now, somehow, for a few evening hours, the dis- 
turbing figure had broken through, and had smiled 
mockingly between herself and the radiant lady before 
whom in spite of all her triumphs, she had seemed to 
fade into her little, old-time Perella insignificance. 
For the first time since her marriage in February she 
felt frightened. That was why instinct had impelled 
her to her husband’s room. The sight of him in the 
eternal pathos of sleep, loyal and trusting, had sent her 
fears packing, and she had gone back to bed, humbly 
glowing with the memories of his infinite goodness. 


CHAPTER XV 


THE next two years counted in the life of Beatrice 
Ellison as a period of dark romance and vivid multi- 
coloured pain. 

That is where your conscientious dramatists, pinning 
their faith to an astute but nevertheless absurd dog- 
matist by the name of Aristotle, go desperately wrong. 
The dramas of life are not enacted in the same spot 
within the limit of twenty-four hours. The infernal 
intrigue (to use the word technically) goes on for an in- 
definite time, during which all kinds of human emotions 
bloom and fade, are reborn and die, or remain sem- 
piternal, according to particular psychological condi- 
tions. And the average human is a_ sentimental 
fatalist. He accepts to-day’s gloom and hopes for 
sunshine to-morrow; or he revels in the day’s glory and 
retires to bed shrugging happy shoulders at the possi- 
bility of to-morrow’s rain. And so his life goes on 
from week to week, from month to month, from year to 
year. 

A clever young man with a facile pencil does not of- 
ten spring into fame and affluence during a New York 
season. At the end of two years, Anthony was very 
much in the same position as when he married, save for 
one little difference. His position, for what it was 
worth, was, at any rate, secure. He had assured him- 
self such a livelihood as had entitled him to move from 
the gloomy eyrie in the down-town hotel to a commo- 
dious studio-apartment in an agreeable quarter of the 
city. He took his pride seriously, and worked like a 
slave. He had a good firm line, a sense of character, 


an almost pedantic conscience for detail, Magazine 
231 


232 PERELLA 


art editors gave him as much work as he could get 
through. Without being startling, he was sound. 
They knew he would never let an author down; that he 
knew his world; that he wouldn’t stick men in silk hats 
and cloth caps around the gaming-tables of Monte 
Carlo, or draw a Master of Fox Hounds riding en- 
couragingly ahead of a pack in full cry. Art editors 
who have to take many things for granted, often re- 
ceive nasty sarcastic letters which they don’t like. 
“T’l] be even with you yet,” may run the legend beneath. 
the picture of a square-jawed, clean-shaven man glow- 
ering at his enemy. The Art Editor thinks it’s splen- 
did, till he is snowed under with letters. ‘Hasn’t the 
illustrator read the text? ‘I'll be even with you 
yet,’ he cried, ‘tugging at his ragged beard.” Or 
again: ‘*Why are these members of the Alpine Club 
ascending the Jungfrau on skis? J might understand 
if they wanted to jump down some thousands of feet; 
but then they’d carry them under their arms. And, 
even then, parachutes would be better.” Yes, Art 
Editors have to deal with nasty, sarcastic readers, and 
with artists of over-riotous imagination. So when they 
struck a safe man like Anthony, they were happy. If 
he had to illustrate a North-West story, he would not 
be content with inventing some kind of cross between a 
bull-dog and a jackal, but he would comb New York for 
models of genuine huskies and business-like sleighs. 

But with all this, except in a tiny magazine world, 
he had achieved neither fame nor fortune. He had not 
made good, in the great sense. He had found a place 
in the comfortable ruck, where, as far as he could see, 
he was likely to remain. 

At the end of two years, they were more or less at the 
point from which they had started. He had spent two 
summers in Dinard which had been to both of them, 





BEATRICE 233 


after the first fine raptures, sojourns of irritating de- 
spair. At first the stolen interviews had a semblance of 
guilt which invested them with an atmosphere of deli- 
cious comedy; afterwards they assumed the aspect that 
was ridiculously stern. ‘To creep noiselessly through 
the passages of a rambling house in slippered feet might 
be romantic for a lover, but, to a husband, it became a 
pilgrimage of humiliation. Complaint, on his part, 
would have been the act of a creature destitute of rea- 
son. Beatrice flamed for acknowledgment of the 
honourable bond. If they were caught by guests, or 
servants, where would be her reputation? She had 
everything to lose and nothing to gain by the compact 
of secrecy. But the most commanding of women, ac- 
customed to rule, a gracious queen, over all with whom 
she came in contact, surrendered to the pride of the 
young man whom she loved and whom she knew that she 
would cease to honour, although all the tendrils of pas- 
sion would cling desperately around him, if he dero- 
gated in any degree from that pride of his manhood. 
There had been unromantic little quarrels. 

In New York, where she made longer stays than ever, 
the situation was obviously absurd. Work claimed his 
days. ‘The most lunatic convention of conventions 
claimed their nights. Only now and then in the con- 
fidential environment of Cornelius Adams’s Long Is- 
land home could they pass a week-end in open conjugal 
serenity. Their genial host treated the matter as a 
radiant jest; for which, ungenerously, now and then, 
they tore him to pieces. 

After the first spring, Beatrice abandoned Florence. 
She gave out that the climate no longer suited her. In- 
deed, one year she let the villa to friends, on the urgent 
counsel of Fargus who had an idea that, unless a house 
is kept instinct with the human spirit, it moulders into 


234 PERELLA 


decay. So her life was spent between New York and 
Dinard with an odd week or two in Paris, which seemed 
little else than a phantasmagoria of clothes. 

During this period she had felt bound to admit her 
daughter into her confidence. Emilia, having learned 
all that there was to be known of the eugenics of mater- 
nity in Minnesota, had gone to London on a Woman’s 
Congress, whose mission, according to Anthony, was to 
instruct England how to perpetuate her race, and there 
had suddenly been translated from the realm of theory 
to that of practice by an excellent young Conservative 
Member of Parliament whom she professed to adore. 
“To avoid the usual idiotic fuss,” she wrote, “I thought 
it far more intelligent to get married first and tell you 
afterwards. . . . He’s the perfect type of Englishman, 
legislates with a sweet serenity unknown in our country, 
dances well, has made a profound study of the divorce 
laws of the State of Nevada—when he was a barrister 
he went to Reno for a joke—there’s something awesome 
and sacred in the English sense of humour—is an 
Authority on cookery, knows everybody, but loves no- 
body but me, and has the divinest house in Somerset- 
shire, with walls plastered all over with ancestors. 
There’s one who was Court Tale-bearer, or some such 
functionary, to Queen Elizabeth. He stood in front 
of it and said: ‘Look at him—beef all through—and 
look at me. I’m the image of him. What’s wrong 
with English Eugenics? Do you still call us poor 
fish?? I had to say I couldn’t. . . . And as I’m as 
healthy as a woman can be, I don’t think Ill worry 
very much about sound progeny. ‘'That’s what I’ve 
learned here about the difference between the two coun- 
tries. America worries. England doesn’t. ... By 
the way my husband’s name is Scrympe—Arbuthnot 
Scrympe—answers to the name of ‘Butts.’ He’s a 


BEATRICE 235 


baronet 300 years old—something to do with Nova 
Scotia. Anyway, dear, when you write, address me as 
Lady Scrympe. . . . I’m awfully happy . . .” and so 
forth, and etcetera. 

Whereupon, to Beatrice it had only seemed fair to 
acquaint Emilia with her own matrimonial adventure. 
Yet, when the letter had come, she sighed, feeling all of 
a sudden, disconcertingly old. Emilia’s gay reference 
to progeny gave cause for disturbance. Emilia a 
mother, she herself would be a grandmother—in reason- 
able course of nature, say this time next year. Beauti- 
ful women with young husbands don’t like to be grand- 
mothers. Generations are apt to become confused, and 
and few women appreciate confusion. 

Emilia’s cabled reply was characteristic. ‘So glad. 
Me for godmother,” which shocked the more delicate 
mind of Beatrice, and tended to further confusion of the 
generations. 

When she told Anthony about it, he said: 

“Mater pulchra, filia not worthy to kiss your beauti- 
ful feet.” 

*“‘She’s modern, of course,” said Beatrice weakly, “but 
she’s rather a nice child in her way.” 

““Her way is not our way, Madonna mia, thank God,” 
he cried, debonair, always the lover. 

What exactly he meant, she didn’t know, but his 
graceful trick of speech and intonation always stood for 
music in her ears. Airily he dismissed Emilia from 
their joint contemplation. ‘Their hours together, he 
declared, were for themselves alone. | 


They had ended the second summer of their con- 
cealed married life at Dinard, and, with frayed nerves 
and reckless disregard of appearances, had settled down 
for a spell in the flat off the Champs Elysées. Gossip 


236 PERELLA 


of the previous year had developed into scandalous talk. 
They had attempted the impossible. It was all very 
well, the first summer, for Beatrice Ellison to include 
in her house-party a talented young protégé of an 
artist, and get her friends to give him a start. It was 
rather odd to find the same young man installed at the 
villa next year in a house-party far more restricted, 
and obviously persona gratissima to his hostess. It 
was still more odd to find him again, lodged in the studio 
wing, with scarcely a house-party at all, and apparently 
disdaining the portrait drawing which had been the 
reason of his former existence there. As a matter of 
fact, the Dinard standard of payment had become ab- 
surd. He had brought over to Europe blocks of fiction 
in typescript for the illustration of which he received 
in dollars what he would have earned in francs as a 
Dinard portraitist. And even had he desired to keep 
up the pretty illusion of Beatrice Ellison’s protégé, he 
hadn’t the time. American editors are human, kindly 
men, but they expect their artists to treat them too with 
human kindness; and when an artist fails them, they 
fire him through a flood of tears. Anthony, now that 
he had found his vocation, had no intention of being 
fired. He boasted that he had abandoned his former 
careers on his own initiative. “This,” he had said to 
the senior partner of the firm of Blake, Bislett & Smith, 
“is the most soul-destroying sphere of human effort I 
can conceive, and I’m not coming back.” In the same 
clear spirit of independence he had thrown off the dis- 
cipline of Halliday Armstrong, R.A., who was as kindly 
disposed towards him as an eminent architect could be 
towards a perfect-mannered and artistic pupil. Be- 
neath his attractive flamboyancy ran full veins of de- 
termined character, in whose recognition Beatrice found 
justification for her unwise love. 


BEATRICE 237 


“T’ve found my job, adorable one,” said he, “and I’m 
cleaving to it even as I cleave to you. Ido it well. I 
know I doit well. I’m not going to leave it to do things 
that my conscience tells me I do badly. I’m not proud 
of my crayon portraits. Any poor, pallid, long- 
haired, half-starved wreck on the Riviera can beat me 
at the game. Our dear friend, the Duchesse de Mont- 
faucon gave me the lesson of my life. I’m a secondary 
artist. I can interpret other fellows’ ideas. I’ve none 
of my own. But I can draw. And I’ve got-a sort of 
line of my own—individual—which I’m working at like 
hell. Nobody knows it, but it’s coming. I feel it. 
Sometimes it gives me the creeps, like a man groping 
about for hidden treasure. If I were an ass I’d do the 
half-baked stuff right away. Here”—he scattered ex- 
perimental drawings before her—‘“‘is enough to épater 
le bourgeois, but it’s all wrong as yet. You must let 
me evolute my own way, carissima.” 

And she, knowing that he spoke in deep sincerity, 
flung over him the love and sympathy of her being. 
It would be folly for him to act otherwise. In the 
meantime his retirement from portrait painting at Di- 
nard dissolved the ostensible reason of his living at the 
villa. So evil tongues wagged hard. Dinard became 
a hateful place; she vowed she would not return; she 
would sell the villa. It was idiotic to have so many 
houses. You were bound to inhabit them some time or 
the other, and therefore you were tied to a yearly round 
of two or three spots in a multi-spotted world. Fargus, 
given the order to sell, manifested delight. He him- 
self disliked Dinard, and, during his leisure, opened 
his lungs to the vast spaciousness of the sands of 
Paramé. His Anglo-Saxon soul rebelled against 
the Teuton architecture of the house. He could 
also sell it at a million francs’ profit, which appealed 


238 PERELLA 


to him as the administrator of the Ellison fortune. 

They breathed freely in the Paris flat. Besides the 
maid, Dennever, the other servants had been admitted 
to confidence. ‘There was no further need of humiliat- 
ing subterfuge. They promised themselves an un- 
clouded month. In October Anthony must return to 
New York, where Beatrice would join him soon after in 
their detached and unsatisfactory existence. But this 
month in Paris out of season was their very own, like 
the week-ends on Long Island, precious for its uncen- 
sured intimacy. It happened, too, to be the golden end 
of a leaden summer. Dinard in pouring rain and 
blustering wind is primarily a lamentable place of so- 
journ, and secondarily a forcing-bed of gossip. It had 
been a dismal August. But now the sun shone be- 
nignly and the leaves in the Bois were still brave and 
green and the City of Light laughed its full. 


There was a fair sprinkling of folk at the open-air 
luncheon-tables of the Pavillon d’Arménonville. The 
air outside a suddenly baked Paris was suave. Flecks 
of sunshine fell through the overhanging foliage on the 
table-cloth, and played pretty tricks of colour through 
the glasses half filled with wine. Anthony cast a 
hand. 

“Look at these reflections. I’d give anything to be a 
painter. If I were, this is the sort of fairy bedevilment 
of light and colour I’d like to paint. And Id like to 
paint you this very minute with that impudent splash 
of sunshine over your chin.” 

She leaned forward. ‘‘You’re a dear. It’s nice to 
be told that you still want to paint me.” 

“My Beatrice,” he cried with his gay laugh, “thasn’t 
it been, isn’t it, and won’t it ever be my despair that I 
can’t paint you as you are?” 


BEATRICE 239 


“But you have me, Anthony, for what I’m worth: so 
what, after all, is the good of a picture?” 

“For posterity. Also, if I could paint you, you 
would know how my soul really sees you.” 

The maitre d’*hétel came up with the card. He took 
it with the air of a young prince. 

“Don’t order the impossible,” she said. 

“Madam,” said he, “‘you will eat whatever I choose 
to have set before you.” 

Such, now and then, were his hours, when he could 
be freed from her unescapable, inevitable bounty, and 
fate and circumstances permitted him to play the ordi- 
nary husband’s part. 

“We'll have canteloupe melon and Marennes oysters 
and the first little illegitimate young partridges of the 
season, and some peaches which I see over there in cot- 
ton wool, and a lralf bottle of Montrachet and a bottle 
of 1911 Chambertin, and then we’ll see. My dear, it’s 
the simplest and most possible lunch in the world.” 

She sighed happily, for he was in his dear gay 
humour. On occasion, at Dinard, he had been frac- 
tious, irritable, rebellious. He had danced much with 
a girl of no particular value, the daughter of English 
Army people; and had obviously turned her head with 
his irresponsible talk. She was very young, and 
Beatrice had often looked at them with a hateful ache 
in her heart. And when she had reproached him, with 
all the tact of which she was mistress, he had turned 
on her in indignation. She must let him lead the life 
of a human being and a gentleman. Things were dif- 
ficult enough already; but if jealousy crept in they 
would be intolerable. Where was her self-respect? 
How could she dream of setting up against herself this 
immature thing of skin and bone, with the knowledge 
of life of a Dorsetshire field-mouse, who was having 


240 PERELLA 


the thinnest of times, poor child, in a resort of vanity 
where nobody wanted her? If there ever was an al- 
truistic Galahad, rescuing maiden from the dragons of 
Boredom, Unhappiness and Despair, it was he, An- 
thony Blake. That awkward child! He had been 
practising the merest Christian charity. And, in spite 
of horrible jealousy, she knew his indignation was sin- 
cere. 

“But my dear,” she had said, “what about the girl? 
Is it fair? She may be crying her eyes out for 
you.” 

“Oh, damn,” he had replied. “I giveitup. If you 
tell me I’m a sort of poison-flower to maidens, I'll agree 
for the sake of a peaceful life. But, after all, what 
the hell shall I do? I can’t stick labels on me, front 
and back: ‘I am the Deadly Nightshade. Avoid me’ 
—can I, my dear? And, all said and done, I’m a mod- 
est, clean-living sort of chap, and your suggestion of 
me as the shatterer of young women’s hearts rather 
shocks my notions of ordinary decency.” 

Whereupon she had said, yielding to his arms which 
stiffened around her convincingly: 

“T believe you, my dear. But you are young and 
kind and brilliant, and the charm of you is your mod- 
esty. You give free-handed to women, and you don’t 
realize what damfools women are. When you saw that 
colourless girl in her Eau-de-Nil frock—it was very 
badly made—why did you say: ‘Charming. A spray 
of sea-foam’?” 

“T wanted to please the poor child. I love giving 
pleasure to people.” 

“But she went away thinking herself Venus Anadyo- 
mene.” 


“Youre right,” he admitted. “Really, she looked 


BEATRICE QA] 


like Dowsabella fallen naked into a pond and come up 
covered all over with duck-weed.” 

Thus, blank truth having prevailed, peace had been 
established. But in the older woman’s heart there was 
always the cankerous dread of youth, and in the young 
man’s mind the impatience of unreasonable suspicion. 
This was but a foolish instance among many during 
their two years of abnormal married life. 

But here, in this frivolous, mellow garden with its 
rococo chalet and its gleam of napery and silver and 
the reds and yellows and blues of women’s attire, and 
its tempered sunlight, she forgot Dinard, glad to have 
him incontestably her own. She loved the perfection 
of his hostship, the boyishness of his pleasure in receiv- 
ing, after an expectant moment, her commendation of 
the melon which he had chosen. Like many Americans, 
she did not greatly care for European oysters, but to- 
day she would have swallowed whelks with rapture. 
During these years she had grown very gentle; some- 
what fearfully deferential to him; which gave her an 
added and pathetic charm. Careless, like most men, 
he never guessed how she manceuvred to catch his smile 
and the light in his blue eyes. And to-day there were 
light and laughter in them enough for her heart’s con- 
tent. 

“Strange, my Beatrice,” said he, “how we love things 
transferred from their particular sphere. Aboard a 
steamer I don’t take much stock of the ocean—perhaps 
because I’m either miserable at leaving you, or longing 
to see you—but now these oysters bring back all the 
odour of brine of the Atlantic and its romance. Won- 
derful. Perhaps the soul has something to do with it. 
Just a touch of perfume, or a far-off chord of music 
awakens the soul—whereas the senses have got to be 


242 PERELLA 


drenched. See how one can moralize: an oyster. 
But oe 

He stopped short, somewhat agape, aware that she 
was not listening to him or looking at him. He turned 
involuntarily to follow her glance over his shoulder— 
and there, entering at the gate of the shrub-encircled 
enclosure, welcomed by the uniformed chasseur, he saw 
Silvester Gayton and a transfiguration of the waif that 
once he had called his Perella. 

A glance of recognition, and the Professor hastily 
skinned off his right-hand glove and hastened up, 
bowler hat in hand, followed more composedly by 
Perella. He had grown balder, and his hair was turn- 
ing from grey to white; his little grizzled moustache 
was snow-white, but he was the same nervous, precise, 
little courteous man, peering kindly at the world 
through the thick lenses of his pince-nez, whom An- 
thony had met in Florence, as it seemed, many years 
ago. And his grey tweed suit, the coat tightly but- 
toned, was of the same old-fashioned cut. Both Bea- 
trice and Anthony rose in greeting. 

“My dear, what a wonderful pleasure.” Silvester 
kissed her hand. ‘Mr. Blake, I think you used to Know 
my wife.” 

“Indeed I did,” said Anthony, and for a second her 
left hand lay in his. 

“IT thought you were in New York,” said Perella. 

“That’s my home, but Europe once a year is my holi- 
day. But you—what are you doing here?” 

“Ffoliday-making too. You don’t suppose this”’— 
she gave one of her remembered significant and ironical 
glances round—“‘is the Professor’s usual environment?” 

Silvester was saying: ‘Why have you abandoned 





Florence? Perella will tell you I get more and more 


heartbroken every year.” 


BEATRICE 243 


“Ffe misses you dreadfully,” said Perella. 

“You must join us,” said Anthony. “Why, of 
course. We’re only beginning. Look.” He snapped 
a finger to a maitre d’hétel, who hurried up. ‘“T'wo 
places. It’s done.” He took Silvester’s hat, gloves 
and neatly folded umbrella from him, and handed them 
to a myrmidon whom he waved away. Silvester turned 
to Perella. 

“My dear, before such impetuosity it seems that 
we're helpless.” Then to Beatrice. “May we?” 

‘ She reached out an affectionate hand, and laughed at 
im. : 

“My dear old Silvester, anything else would be im- 
possible. When Anthony’s impetuous, he’s always 
right, Mrs. Gayton.” 

She flashed a possessive glance at Perella. Chairs 
were brought. Anthony pushed Perella’s ceremoni- 
ously into position. She thanked him with an up- 
turned glance. In the far-off days she had once said 
to him: “You’re a master of little courtesies.” She 
remembered the words now. He had not changed. 
Mrs. Ellison’s tribute to his impetuosity proved the 
same Anthony who had driven her home in a cab on 
that first night of his in Florence; and had covered 
her with the rough overcoat that had so comfortable a 
smell. 

Anthony looked at her, exquisite in her ripe and 
miniature beauty set off by delicate apparel, and mar- 
velled at the change. For some time it was only with 
the outer mechanical fringes of his mind that he could 
concern himself with his duties as host. She had lost 
the old wistfulness of the stray elf, but her fairy dainti- 
ness had stayed, and she had gained something of loveli- 
‘ness and repose which he could not gauge. A new ex- 
pression—was it sadness, was it content, was it an 


244 PERELLA 


ironical philosophy of knowledge?—had crept into her 
dark eyes. While commanding food and drink, he had 
the sensation of having been the fool of benighted fools, 
of being the most embarrassed, not to say tormented, 
man that day in Paris. 

Silvester, honest soul, gave himself up to the joy of 
meeting his adored Beatrice; poured into her interested 
ear the inner gossip of Florence; bewailed the absence 
of a Lady Paramount who might have solved so many 
social problems which alas! had found their own solu- 
tion in disaster. He himself had pined so often for the 
delicious peace of her loggia, and the joy of the serenity 
of her cool della Robbias. And Beatrice, bound to 
Silvester by ties of old and loyal affection, was held by 
his shy yet eager talk, so that, when Anthony’s task of 
host was done for the moment, he found a guest waiting, 
with a ghost of a smile, for him to make polite conversa- 
tion. 

“Your hand,” said he. “I was so distressed when I 
heard of it. But it was long after it happened.” 

“TY was lucky in falling upstairs instead of down,” 
said Perella. 

A flush came into his cheek. His sensitiveness recog- 
nized her old gift of epigram. 

‘You must have gone through a dreadful time,” he 
said lamely. “After all, a painter’s right hand... . 
well .. .” He shrugged, sympathetically. 

“T’ve got mine in my husband,” said Perella. 

“That’s changing ground from the literal to the 
figurative,” said he; “what about the joy of the 
working?” 

“I’ve found greater joy outside painting,” she said, 
with a glance at Silvester, “than I ever thought pos- 
sible.” 

Something primitive, which he realized the moment 


BEATRICE 245 


afterwards as horrible, impelled him to say in a low 
voice, looking down on his plate: 

“IT don’t believe that’s true.” 

Without looking at her, for, ashamed, he dared not, 
he felt her stiffen. She made a pretence of eating. 
Presently she said: 

‘Paris is delicious at this time of year, isn’t it?” 

“Fantastic. All English and Americans and cin- 
emas. ‘The theatres are all presenting their famous 
old play ‘Relache’ except one, where, if you’re care- 
ful not to appear in evening dress, you can see ‘Le 
Maitre des Forges.’ I had a maiden aunt who, when 
I was a little boy, told me it was the most beautiful play 
she had ever seen.” 

Gathering courage and command of himself, he 
talked frivolously, until, to his relief Beatrice turned 
from Silvester and, in her gracious way, took charge of 
Perella. 

“T was so glad to see things of yours the other day in 
an American magazine—forgive me if I forget the 
name—but I never forget pictures,” said Silvester. 
*“You’ve got a line of your own”—he made the curious 
gesture of the painter’s thumb—“quite original—very 
pleasing. May I tell you something? You young 
men think that an old fellow like me can’t possibly know 
anything about anything. It’s not a criticism of your 
work—which is really admirable—but a suggestion of 
a possible tendency.” 

“My dear Professor,” cried Anthony, “I’m only too 
honoured and flattered that you should have con- 
descended to look even once at my stuff—tlet alone 
twice.” 

“Why twice?” Silvester asked sharply. 
Anthony threw out a graceful hand. 
“Would an eminent critic like you, sir, judge a draw- 


246 PERELLA 


ing at a casual glance, as he turned over the leaves of 
a magazine? He must stop, and, thinking it worth 
judging, look a second time. That’s why I’m so flat- 
tered.” He turned towards him impulsively, so that 
his back was almost against Perella on his right. “It 
would be of the greatest value to me to hear what you 
have to say.” 

Silvester took off his pince-nez, rubbed the sides of his 
nose where they pinched, and put them on again. 

“Forgive me for saying it, but there’s just the danger 
of missing in a trick of ine eee a hard and virile 
line—the capture of beauty. I may be old-fashioned, 
but I’ve lived all my life by the gospel that Beauty is 
God made manifest. . . . Lately I’ve been greatly dis- 
tressed by the product of a man on the verge of genius. 
He has had to commemorate in sculpture a modern 
Francis of Assisi, loving all things great and small, and 
the result is the pretentious, ugly work of a swollen- 
headed ass with a filthy soul. I grant you,” he con- 
tinued, carried away by his thesis, “that things of 
beauty have come apparently out of human cesspools— 
we can count up twenty artists, poets, painters, etc., in 
so many seconds—yet below, there was always the 
pathetic glimmer of the divine. But nothing degrad- 
ingly beastly has ever come out of the soul of a sweet 
and beautiful human being. In that way—by their 
fruits—you shall know them. 'The man who expresses 
in paint or marble his conception of woman as a foul 
beast, must himself be a foul beast. Why the modern 
world which rapturizes over outrages on man, woman, 
beauty and God, can’t see it, is a mystery. There’s no 
alternative to my proposition. . . . Now and then a 
clever young man thinks, without thinking or feeling, 
that he’s going to be devilish clever and do the Great 
Ugly Thing. And so he finds the way of Damnation. 


BEATRICE 247 


He hasn’t the sewer of a soul that can do it with the 
necessary conviction, and so he falls out by the way. 
Ae Sara sorry,’ ’ said Silvester, looking around, for his 
tives companions were silent, “but while trying to point 
a moral I find I’ve been over-adorning a tale. My dear 
Mr. Blake, what I set out to say was—with all diffidence 
—if you could soften your line a bit, your work would 
fall more in accordance with my old-fashioned, but I 
believe God-decreed, ideas of the sacredness of Beauty.” 
“Thank you very much, sir,” said Anthony. “In- 
deed, that’s what I’m trying to do. In my case, the 
hardness you detect is want of technique. Thank 
epodness I hate the ugly people just as much as 
you do.” 

“He is working most desperately hard at it,” Bea- 
trice added. “If you could see his studies you’d recog- 
nize it at once.” 

“I should be delighted to see them,” said Silvester. 
“T gave up teaching long ago, but the instinct of the 
pedagogue still survives.” 

Anthony glowed; renewed his thanks. THis time in 
Paris was at the Professor’s disposal. When could he 
come? 

“My dear,” said Silvester, looking at Perella across 
the table. ‘What are our engagements?” He turned 
to Anthony, courteously; “I should like to see every- 
thing you would care to show me.” 

“It would be much more charming if you two came 
to us,” said Beatrice, in a voice so clear and significant 
that the mild September air around them grew sud- 
denly tense. ‘For lunch or dinner. Any day or any 
hour would suit us, as we have no engagements. The 
same flat, Silvester, Avenue Gabriel. It would be much 
more comfortable for you and Anthony than your ho- 
tel.” 


> 


248 " PERELLA 


“Of course, of course,” said Silvester, nervously. 
“Delightful.” 

Beatrice saw Perella’s dark eyes fixed questioningly 
upon her. Anthony took a sip of wine. She broke 
into a laugh which had a queer sound in her own ears, 
and she laid her hand on Silvester’s arm. 

““My dear old friend. I must Jet you and your beau- 
tiful wife into our secret. We’re not living together in 
sin. We’ve been married for nearly three years.” 

Anthony, with a gesture, said to the company at 
large: 

“Now you hold my reputation in the hollow of your 
hands.” 

Silvester lifted his glass, and bowed from one to the 
other. 

““My sincerest congratulations.” 

Perella, too, touched her glass with her lips, and 
smiled decorously ; but it shook in the fingers below the 
clamped and bound wrist. 


Later, they stood by the garden entrance awaiting 
car and taxi. Perella and Anthony found themselves 
a few paces behind the others, who were deep in sudden 
talk. Anthony knew that Beatrice, with hurried eager- 
ness, was explaining to Silvester the reason of the con- 
cealment of their marriage. He could read his wife’s 
face and her glance. A shaft of light caught her 
cruelly, and showed criss-cross lines about her eyes, 
and a line on her neck, which, carelessly acceptant of 
her charm and beauty, he had scarcely noticed before. 

Perella said: ‘You might have told me.” 

“Why p?? 

“Let’s call it courtesy.” 

“You married first, my dear, without letting me 


BEATRICE 249 


know. Your husband wrote to Beatrice. You “ 
He paused. 

“You’re not going to say that I turned you down?” 
she said, looking at him defiantly. 

“I’m not so eaten up with egotism as all that,” 
said he. 

“You acknowledge then, if there was any wrong be- 
tween us—I don’t say there was, but if there was—it 
was all on your side?” 

“T might make excuses which would seem to you 
very lame, but I won’t. You have every reason to be- 
lieve that I behaved filthily to you. I did.” 

‘And that’s that,” said Perella, with an air of final- 
ity. 

*“And now,” said he, with a glance at the still occu- 
pied pair some yards away, “I realize what a fool and 
a cad I’ve been.” 

“That,” said Perella, “is another matter. Nothing 
to do with me. It’s between you and. yourself. I’ve 
wanted all this time a clean conscience-sheet, and now 
you’ve given it tome. It’s almost worth a Government 
stamp.” 

“You have the law on your side, Perella, and can say 
what you will,” he admitted. 

The chasseur came up, politely. The taxi for Mon- 
sieur. Anthony explained. It was for the other 
monsieur. The chasseur evidently grappled for a 
second with an unexpected situation. 

“Ah, pardon,” said he; “I thought the taxi was for 
Monsieur and Madame.” 





PART V 
ANTHONY AND PERELLA. 


CHAPTER XVI 


Tue Gaytons dined in the Avenue Gabriel. Anthony 
showed his drawings spread out under a good light on 
a drawing-room table. Silvester, seeing the technique 
towards which the artist was striving, gave cordial en- 
couragement. 

“And you, sister artist? What do you think?” 
asked Anthony. 

Perella replied calmly: ‘They’re a tremendous im- 
provement on those you once showed me in Florence. 
You’ve got a mastery”—she took up a drawing and 
looked at it critically, her head on one ag Pro- 
fessor can see faults, but I can’t. Still 

“Still what?” he asked. 

“There doesn’t seem to be much love in it.” 

“What do you mean?” asked Beatrice. 

They were all standing around the table. She took 
the drawing, with the least little possible touch of dis- 
pleasure, from the younger woman’s hand. 

Perella smiled. “I don’t quite know. Such things 
are only a matter of impression. I know when I was 
copying, which, after all, was very mechanical, that, if 
I didn’t really love a bit of a picture, I worked twice as 
hard on it, for conscience’ sake, and it came out half 
as good.” 

Anthony laughed. ‘Why shouldn’t I love what I’ve 
set my heart on?” | 

“That’s for you to say,” said Perella. 

“T don’t know that I quite agree with my wife in 
this particular imstance,” said Silvester pleasantly. 


“But I think I know what’s at the back of her mind. 
250 





ANTHONY AND PERELLA 251 


She has a perfectly logical little philosophy that noth- 
ing can be done well in this world unless there’s some- 
thing which she calls love in it.” 

“Tt’s not mine, but my father’s,” said Perella. “He 
used to say that two people could make exactly the 
same cocktail, using the same ingredients and measure- 
ments, and that one might come out entirely different 
from the other, because one maker had left out love, or 
lovingness, and the other hadn’t.” 

“‘And she makes it a touchstone of life,” said Sil- 
vester proudly. “But here, perhaps, she’s over- 
applying it.” 

_“T hope she is,” cried Anthony. He turned to Per- 
ella. “I know exactly what you mean. But your 
touchstone shouldn’t be applied to purely technical ex- 
ercises, such as these. I don’t claim any kind of in- 
spiration for them. You might just as well criticize 
the soulfulness of a singer practising scales.” 

Perella laughed, and turned away from the table. 

“I stick to my guns. If there was no love in a sing- 
er’s scales, they would be useless. My father always 
had the last word in argument over this. He would 
quote Isaak Walton, who said you must put the worm 
on a hook as if you loved him. . . . I wouldn’t say all 
this, Mrs. Ellison,” she added quickly, “if I hadn’t be- 
longed to the same trade as your husband. Artists are 
in the habit of being frank with one another.” 

“’That’s so,” laughed Anthony. ‘How often haven’t 
we heard the criticism: ‘Rotten. Can’t you do so and 
so, and pull the thing together?’ ” 

He gathered up the drawings, and tied them in the 
big portfolio. Silvester moved away with Beatrice. 

“¥ take back much of what I said a day or two ago. 
Anthony’s on the right track with his work, in spite of 
my little wife; on the way of salvation. One of these 


252 PERELLA 


days something will come—just like that”—he snapped 
finger and thumb—“and he’ll wonder why he never was 
able to do it before, and he’ll be a big man. I tell you 
so, and I’ve got a reputation to maintain.” 

“You always were the: dearest of all dears,” said 
Beatrice gratefully. 

Anthony, at the other end of the drawing-room, was 
fiddling with a knot in the portfolio strings. 

‘*Damn,”’ said he. 

‘Let me try,” said Perella. 

“If I can’t, how can you?” 

“T can put love even into the undoing of knots.” 

She motioned him away, and, with her left hand and 
the half helpless fingers of her right, she freed the 
strings with ease. He tied it, lifted it, so as to stack it 
against the wall. 

“Do you think you’re generous to-night, Perella?” 
he said in a low voice. 

“Not a bit. I’m truthful. Have you put love into 
anything you’ve ever done?” 

As she said this she did not look at him. At first her 
eyes were downcast. ‘Then he was sure that her glance 
had strayed down the room to where Beatrice stood 
regal, smiling down at Silvester. 

“TI should never have thought you could be bitter,” 
said he. 

“Neither should I,” said Perella. 

He stacked his portfolio, and returned to her. She 
admired a Chardin on the wall. He turned on the tiny 
canopy of electric light. She called her husband. 

“Silvester, have you seen this?” 

He hurried up. Yes, of course. Was there a pic- 
ture of his dear hostess he hadn’t seen and verified? 

‘Your husband has been my artistic conscience for 
I don’t know how many years,” said Beatrice. 


ANTHONY AND PERELLA 253 


Perella linked her arm in his. 

“Don’t you think he’s the most wonderful man you’ve 
ever known?” 

““He’s the dearest of my friends,” said Beatrice. 

Anthony laughed his gay laugh. 

“You’re quite at liberty to agree with her, my dear. 
Husbands don’t count.” 

After the guests had left Beatrice said: 

“T hope she’ll make him happy. He’s one of God’s 
elect.” 

“Why shouldn’t she?” 

“A touch of the shrew, perhaps.” 

“You don’t like her?” he challenged, boldly. 

She shrugged her shoulders. 

“In the world we live in, it’s silly to like or dislike 
people at first sight. I love Silvester, who evidently 
adores his wife, and I wouldn’t do anything in the 
world to hurt him, and that’s enough for me.” 

Whereupon Anthony felt that, just as Perella had 
declared war against him, so was Beatrice prepared to 
declare war against Perella. He went to bed very un- 
happy. ‘The emergence of a fantastically new Perella 
had spoiled the pride of his little month’s matrimonial 
felicity. He couldn’t get her out of his head. She 
danced through his troubled dreams. <A_ shrew? 
Even at that estimate, if any man had merited a show 
of shrewishness from a woman, it was he, Anthony 
Blake. Yet shrewishness a man could set aside as a 
luckily undiscovered fault in a woman he had proposed 
to marry. No. There was nothing of the shrew in 
Perella. Something far deeper. Something he could 
not fathom. The word “scorn” flamed across his un- 
comforted soul. The scorn of a shrew was an idiot 
conception. Scorn was the quality of the great... . 

There had been some talk of another meeting in 


254 PERELLA 


Paris. But, the next morning, he was relieved to hear 
by telephone that the Gaytons had decided to leave for 
Florence almost immediately. He sent Perella an im- 
mense basket of flowers, to which was pinned a conven- 
tionally regretful card. But in his heart he almost re- 
joiced. In a fortnight or so, he would be in America, 
out of infernal danger, and Beatrice would be with him; 
a protection, and a gauge of honour. 

There came over Paris the capricious wave of a few 
days’ intense heat. The flat was a furnace. Emilia, 
whom he had not seen, and her husband, chose this very 
week to visit Paris. Lady Scrympe, tall, dry, pretty, 
with queer suggestions of her mother in glance and ges- 
ture, seemed as vital in the blazing heat as a salamander 
in the flames. Arbuthnot Scrympe, a fleshy, clean- 
shaven, black-haired youth, with a passion for food 
and statistics, appeared to do exactly what he was told. 
Emilia led the quartette a nightmare dance through 
Paris, attended by a Circean rout who deposited a pallid 
Anthony and an exhausted and two hundred year old 
Beatrice on the Avenue Gabriel at four o’clock every 
morning. 

Emilia called him Anthony from the first moment, 
appointed him, without question, her cavaliere servente, 
sent him errands, took him with her shopping, filled 
him with information, and bored him to unprofitable 
tears. When Beatrice pleaded the heat or fatigue as 
an excuse for this pandemonium of a pace, Emilia was 
all solicitude, treated her as an old lady with whose 
natural infirmities youth must needs reckon. Where- 
upon Beatrice would flash forth a vehement repudia- 
tion, and drag a protesting Anthony into the exhaust- 
ing and inane whirlpool of Emilia’s rabble rout. At 
the same time, she began to put more than the conyen- 
tional touch of colour on her cheeks. 


ANTHONY AND PERELLA 255 


“For God’s sake don’t do it, my dear,” said An- 

thony one day. 
~“T must. I don’t want to look like a hag.” 

He shrugged his shoulders and turned aside. The 
Paris illusion was over. ‘Thank Heaven, they were 
soon leaving the place. His life in America, anyhow, 
was saner than this. 

And then an ironical god whispered a word into the 
ear of the Editor-in-Chief of an important group of 
magazines, from whom he had hitherto received his 
main commissions; and the editor, thus inspired, sent a 
long cable to the young artist. 

“Mailing you typescript of Olney Burge’s new book; 
scene laid Florence, Monte Carlo. Do drawings on 
spot and charge up expenses.” 

“Damn!” said Anthony, for to those of any sense who 
worked under the Editor-in-Chief, his will was law. 

On the other hand, when he showed the cable to Bea- 
trice, she pirouetted in joy and cried: ‘How lovely!” 

“I can’t see that it’s lovely at all,” he said, ill- 
humouredly. “I thought we had finished with Flor- 
ence,” 

“TI had—without you,” she corrected. “But it has 
been tugging at me all the time. I never told you.” 

He reflected for a moment on the sacrifice she had 
made of the home that really mattered to her. 

“I’m sorry, dear,” said he. “I shall never finish 
realizing what you’ve had to give up for me.” 

“T would give up more than you could ever dream of 
for your happiness,” she replied wistfully. 

His conscience was sorely pricked. He went off toa 
lunch of discomfort with Scrympe, who had said the 
night before: | 

“My dear fellow, can’t you and I get together, by 
ourselves, away from this hell-cat mess, and have a good 


256 PERELLA 


real talk? I know a little place on the other side of 
the river with wonderful Toulouse food, and a cellar 
to dream about. 'There’s a sanded floor, and the table- 
linen is coarse but spotless, all in the old French 
Styleimicere? 

Anthony called for his son-in-law at Claridge’s, and 
they drove to the Petit Cassoulet in a little street off the 
Boulevard Raspail. The place was crammed with 
Americans and English, with a few stray Dutch. The 
small room was airless, and, according to Anthony 
afterwards, reeked like an inferno with the steam of hell- 
broth. 

They got a little table, from which a pair had just 
risen, littered with the unsavoury remains of the late 
meal. Scrympe put up his eye-glass and apologized. 
The last time—in April—that he had been there, the 
place was just discreetly full. It was beastly how peo- 
ple got to know of these places. Anyhow, he was sure 
the cooking would be good. He ordered the luscious 
meal of Gascony—insisting on the Cassoulet, the classi- 
cal dish of the house. The landlord himself had come 
from Castelnaudary, the inmost shrine of Cassoulet. 
Anthony, suffering from lacerated conscience, disliked 
the place more and more. It was the act of an idiot to 
make a man eat a stew of goose and fat pork and brown 
- sauce and garlic and heavy white beans in a temper- 
ature of 95° in the shade. And when it came, such 
was the inadequate service, it was tepid, with a horrid 
little film on the sauce. The vaunted wine was heavy 
and sour. And Scrympe, beaming and apoplectic, ate 
voraciously, praising the dreadful stuff, and could find 
nothing more cheery to talk about, during this solicited 
heart-to-heart interview, than exports and imports, the 
inner reasons for the depreciation of the franc, and 
the taxation of land-values in England. 


ANTHONY AND PERELLA 257 


Later Anthony found Beatrice alone in the flat. 
She smiled as he came in, and looked very cool and rest- 
ful. She listened amusedly to his picturesque account 
of the feast. Now, he sympathized with Emilia’s pas- 
sion for whirling Arbuthnot around jazz-places. It 
kept Arbuthnot quiet. 

“Tf I were Emilia,” said he, “I’d swing him round 
and round in a salad cage until he died! Just picture 
him stuffing himself with cold goose fat and cooing 
about land values!” 

“She likes him,” said Beatrice. 

“T don’t. They’re not our kind, Madonna”—she 
started, for he had not given her the old name for a 
long time—“and their ways aren’t ways of pleasantness 
and their paths aren’t paths of peace. Let’s cut it all 
out and start for Florence to-morrow.” 

“The house won’t be ready. Fargus’ll have to be 
fetched from Dinard.” 

He confounded Fargus. <A wire would secure the 
dusting of rooms, the airing of sheets, and a scratch 
meal when they arrived, which was all that mattered. 

She said, with a queer look in her eyes and a tremor 
of the lips: | 

“Have you decided to stay at the villa?” 

He planted himself in front of her, hands in jacket 
pockets. 

“Yes. If you’llhaveme. Butnotasat Dinard. I 
see I’ve made you suffer too much with all this subter- 
fuge. Let us put a notice of our marriage in the 
papers and be done with it.” 

She leaned back in her chair, and closed her eyes, 
and nodded faintly and smiled. 

“Yes, dear. Let us have done with it.” 

“The whole fault has been mine,” said he. 

She opened her eyes, smiled again and rose, catch- 


258 PERELLA 


ing at his courteous, assisting hand. 

“No. Not all. Mine. Perhaps mine more than 
yours.” 

He looked at her uncomprehending. 

“Your fault?” 

She nodded. 

“But, what do you mean?” 

She crossed to a table for a cigarette. A woman 
can’t explain when she is answering thoughts of her own 
that have never entered into a man’s head. It’s one of 
woman’s ingrained habits that make them often irritat- 
ingly enigmatic to men. 

‘*Well—we start to-morrow?” asked Anthony, taking 
refuge in the concrete. 

She laughed. “Technically. Yes. But give me a 
day or two’s grace.” 

He swore that she could have all the grace she 
wanted. 

“But there’s a big full early moon to-night. Let 
us cut Arbuthnot and Emilia and run away by our- 
selves to Versailles and dine on a terrace.” 

‘And imagine ourselves, for the last time, naughty 
lovers instead of a respectably recognized old married 
couple.” 

“Why,” he cried, “you don’t regret—do you?” 

“The old life had its points,” said Beatrice. 


Soon, they settled down in Florence. The fact of 
their marriage had been announced in half a dozen 
newspapers, and now was being spread and commented 
on in sixty. It was more than the bare fact that oc- 
casioned comment, for the date was given, two and a 
half years before. Hundreds of tongues wagged, 
many of them lyingly, claiming for their owners ex- 
clusive knowledge of the marriage from the very begin- 


ANTHONY AND PERELLA 259 


ning. Special reporters from Paris and Rome infested 
the Villa Corazza. The New York papers gave first- 
class sensation head-lines to the romance. The Ellison 
family and fortune belonged to the national life of 
America, and American citizens are deeply interested in 
that life’s assets. The postman groaned under the 
day’s mail. Sheaves of telegrams were handed in. 
Fargus had to engage a special shorthand-typist in or- 
der to cope with the mass of correspondence. 

“Did you ever dream of such a to-do?” asked An- 
thony. “Just like throwing a stone into a wasp’s nest. 
Can’t we get under cover until it’s over?” 

“Don’t worry,” said Cornelius Adams, who had al- 
ready gone into residence in Florence. ‘T'o-morrow a 
millionaire trying to commit suicide will miss himself 
and shoot a cinema star, and you’ll both be forgotten.” 

“It?s only like being photographed by a magnesium 
flash,” laughed Beatrice. 

“At the same time,” said Cornelius reflectively, 
“there’s a lot of publicity in it for a rising young artist. 
If you could rush off to New York now—you 
could i 

“T’d just as soon rush off to Hell,” Anthony inter- 
rupted. 

‘Your husband’s spirit, my dear Beatrice,” laughed 
the other, “has always been his great attraction.” 

The excitement of the great world was ‘soon diverted 
into other channels; but the ferment of Florentine so- 
ciety took longer to subside. TF elicitations to a Lady 
Paramount must take a nobler form than even the most 
flowery lines of ink. The wedded pair were entertained 
almost beyond the limit of physical endurance. At 
first Anthony was hard put to it even to read the type- 
script of the Olney Burge novel, the determining factor 
of the whole business. 





260 PERELLA 
At many of these festivals he met the Gaytons. 


That marriage, too, had been a Florentine sensa- 
tion, though less flamboyant, and there had been many 
conjectures whether the Professor would seal up his 
pretty young bride in his hermitage, or whether he 
would let her go forth to see the world. The upholders 
of the latter theory triumphed. Silvester appeared 
only too proud to show his beautiful elf of a wife to 
anybody. She was young, he told those to whom he 
could speak in elderly confidence; she had a touch on 
life as sensitively creative as that of a musician on 
strings or keys; it was a joy to him to see her in the 
outer world of mountains and gardens and cities and 
flowers and men and women. And there really were 
people who thought he would stick her on a shelf in his 
musty old library? Did they think he was an inhu- 
man abstraction? He might have been once; but now 
all was different. . . . To the Marchesa della Torre 
he opened his heart. To her, he could speak of Per- 
ella’s sunless days, her outlook on happiness through 
the smoke-obscured panes of back-bedroom windows. 
She was a thing of joy made for the sunshine. Every 
gleam that he could give her, she should have. His 
work? He had done most of it. Laid foundations for 
younger men to build on. What remained he could do 
in peace and at leisure, for that, too, appealed to his 
wife’s many-sided joyousness. No. His work had 
become a secondary pursuit. His interest lay in the 
gladness of Perella. Why shouldn’t she excursionize 
and picnic with fellow-youth? Why shouldn’t she 
dance? When she danced, she danced on flowers. 
Were they daisies, she wouldn’t even leave them rosy, 
so light were her feet. When he waxed lyrical, the 
Marchesa laughed comfortably, and he grew red. It 


ANTHONY AND PERELLA 261 


was a fact, he would declare. He loved to watch 
Kerwie' 

“To tell you the truth,” he said one day, “I really 
enjoy gadding about. I’ve longed to gad about all my 
life.” 

The Marchesa stared at him. 

“Then why on earth haven’t you done it, with all 
the drawing-rooms of the civilized world open to you?” 

“Perhaps that’s why,” he replied, hesitatingly. 
“They seemed to yawn—like caverns, you know—and I 
felt afraid to go in by myself. I always seemed to be 
walking about in a queer envelope of my own loneli- 
ness. It was only with you, and perhaps half a dozen 
people, all told, in the world, that this sort of cylin- 
drical atmosphere in the middle of which I stood up 
seemed to be dissipated. I know it all exuded from my- 
-self—some lonely people can blow and swish it away, 
like you, my dear; but others, less brave, can’t. So you 
see, when you feel you can’t get into contact with other 
human beings who are wandering about free from 
cylinders, you get frightened and stay by yourself. 
. . . ’msure I never could have dared enter the King- 
dom of Heaven, no matter how polite St. Peter might 
have been—unless perhaps he had told me I’d got to 
lecture.” 

“And now?” 

“Y’m not lonely”—he beamed—“I haven’t got a 
cylinder. I’m like ordinary happy folk.” 


So it came to pass that, when Beatrice returned to 
reign in Florence, with Anthony as consort, they found 
Perella quite a great little lady, and Silvester an almost 
indefatigable social personage. 

The inner social world of Florence is cosmopolitan. 
There being scarcely a noble Italian family which has 


262 PERELLA 


not some matrimonial connection with well-born Eng- 
lish or Americans, the nationalities must perforce 
mingle. This world, therefore, though exclusive, is 
fairly large. It presents a social phenomenon prac- 
tically unknown in France or Spain or any other Eu- 
ropean country, and in Italy only perhaps in the two 
cities—Florence and Rome. 

Here, therefore, did Anthony and Perella continually 
meet, and talk and dance. The first time he led her 
out, he said: 

“It’s comic that we’ve never had a dance to- 
gether . . .” and a moment or two later: “Are you 
really dancing?” 

‘““What do you mean?” she asked. 

“What I say. Are you dancing, or am I carrying 
about a bit of thistledown in my hands?” 

“T oughtn’t to have risen,” she said. “I had almost 
forgotten you. I won’t again.” 

“Which? Rise, or forget me?” 

“Both.” 

“The balance is on the side of comfort,” said he. 

But though they were often thrown together, it was 
always in a crowded drawing-room or garden, or at the 
latest Thé-Dansant upon which Fashionable Florence 
had set the seal of its approval. There was time for 
little but the mterchange of light talk. Besides, Per- 
ella held a little court, and Anthony found himself 
taking his turn with the rest of her retinue, mostly com- 
posed of young Italians, idle members of old families, 
or officers sprucely uniformed and gaily deferential. 
There was one of the former category—a Prince Panini 
—whom Anthony soon grew to hold in fierce abomina- 
tion. He was a man in the early thirties, clean-shaven, 
London dressed, with a little fair moustache and fair 
hair thinning on the top, and pale grey eyes, and a 


ANTHONY AND PERELLA 263 


reputation not of the most saintly. Silvester liked him 
because he was an authority on Quattrocento gems of 
which he had inherited a fine collection ; that to Anthony 
was comprehensible, although to be deplored. But why 
Perella should obviously like the brute also, he was at a 
loss to determine. Prince Panini was ever by her side. 
He paid her compliments with an unpleasant look in 
his eyes; he touched her shoulders when he helped her - 
on with a wrap; he held her when dancing in a way in 
which, according to Anthony, no man should hold 
Perella. Once he said to her: : 

“T hate seeing you with that fellow.” 

She turned her calm glance on him. 

“Do you expect me to make any comment? You 
might remark: ‘I hate parsnips.? What then?” ' 

“You wouldn’t serve them up to me when I came to 
dinner.” | 

She looked round the tea-room. 

“Did I ask you to dinner here? When I do, perhaps 
I'll be courteous enough not to ask the Prince Panini, 
since you don’t seem to like him.” 

She left an angry Anthony, as she had a trick of 
doing, putting him in the wrong. He suffered from 
her resentment of any interest in her that he might 
manifest. He vowed that, henceforward, he would 
leave her alone; meeting her he would bow and kiss her 
hand, pay her a flowery compliment, after the manner 
of her Italian gallants, and pass along. On one or two 
occasions he tried to keep his vow, and underwent the 
torture of a repressed craving to throw the Prince 
Panini out of window. 

It was rather an irritation than a consolation to see 
Panini conduct himself towards Beatrice in the most ir- 
reproachably charming manner. Indeed, in spite of his 
unsaintly reputation, the two were rather good friends. 


264 PERELLA 


He amused her. He had travelled all over the world 
—maybe in pursuit of unsaintliness; but he had 
gathered by the way a pleasant knowledge of men and 
things. He came to the Villa Corazza, where Anthony, 
titular host, must give him civil welcome; and the 
scoundrel was excellent company. What reason then 
could Anthony give his wife for his hatred of her 
friend? To bring Perella into it were to outrage de- 
cency. At last he began to shrug cynical shoulders. 
If Perella chose to encourage the man, it was her own 
affair. She had a husband to look after her. Besides, 
in her new development she was more than ever able 
to look after herself; and to think of wilful wrong on 
her part was an insult. The next time they met, he 
talked to her in high good humour. Prince Panini, 
however, was nowhere about. 

Then, one day, they ran into each other in the Via 
Tornabuoni. He had come into town to buy some 
artist’s materials; she was vaguely shopping. It was 
a soft and windless morning in early November. The 
city dreamed in the blue haze of a pale blue sky and 
amber sunshine. Even the grim Palazzo Strozzi at the 
end of the street relaxed into a smile. 

Perella stood before him, the incarnation of the 
morning, a Wedgwood-blue thing on her head, and a 
Wedgwood-blue coat trimmed with fur at neck and 
wrists, her once white face glowing in tones of mellow 
peach. She held out her hand in friendly fashion. 

‘What are you doing in Florence at this time of day? 
I thought you worked?” 

“T was getting in new plant for the factory. Be- 
sides, I often come in to sketch. Last month I was 
here every morning. Now it’s a bit chilly for the 
fingers. And you?” 

She dangled a parcel before him. 


ANTHONY AND PERELLA 265 


“Which way are you going?” he asked. 

“I came from that way—as you must have seen— 
and, not being an ant, I’m not turning round again.” 

“May I walk a bit with you?” 

“Tf you like.” 

He accompanied her for a few steps in silence, on 
the sunny side of the street, towards the Arno. Sud- 
denly he said: 

*‘Am I ever to be forgiven, Perella?” 

“It depends on what you mean, Anthony,” she said, 
looking up at him. 

“You no longer feel bitter towards me?” 

“T never felt bitter,” she interrupted. “I don’t say 
I didn’t suffer—I did. I was a sort of fatalist in those 
days...I feel that you’re sorry for hurting 
me———”’ 

“God knows I am,” said he. 

“That being so, I’ve forgiven you. If you weren’t, 
I don’t think I could ever bear to speak to you again. 
And now, we’ve ordered our lives differently. You’re 
happy and I’m happy. So—vwell ” She smiled. 

“We can be friends,” he added quickly, “‘in the light 
of day. Up to now we’ve been groping about in the 
dark—not exactly avoiding each other, but afraid of 
coming into too violent collision. Isn’t that something 
like it?” 

She agreed. ‘As Fate had brought their paths to- 
gether again, it was good to have come to this under- 
standing. At the corner of the Via Tornabuoni and 
the Piazza Santa Trinita, she turned down the narrow 
Via delle Terme, crowded and bustling. He laughed. 

“This reminds me of old times when we used to try 
to talk and couldn’t.” 

She nodded, looked down, memory-smitten. Her 
glance fell upon his neat, brown shoes, and she flushed 





266 PERELLA 


as she remembered their first daylight walk together, 
when he seemed born to millions of pairs equally 
shapely, while she had but one little cheap brown pair 
of best, whose soaking in foul weather would have been 
a tragedy. Now, within sweet reason, it did not mat- 
ter how many pairs she had, or what she paid for them. 
She seemed to be quite a different Perella altogether. 

At the end of the street she hesitated. 

“The morning is young,” said he, “to say nothing of 
humanity being tumultuous. Let u& have a stroll of 
spaciousness in our beloved Signoria.” 

He took her elbow in his old, careless, commanding 
way, and they entered the Piazza by the Loggia dei 
Lanzi. They caught their breath as they came into 
the calm, vast enclosure of immortal beauty. There 
to their hand was Benvenuto’s Perseus, triumphant, 
with the Gorgon’s head; and Donatelli’s Judith and 
Holofernes and the rest of the illustrious company in 
the exquisitely vaulted tabernacle. And away before 
them frowned the sombre majesty of the Palazzo 
Vecchio, and the Uffizi, and the Fountain of Neptune. 
And all shimmered beneath the half veiled noon-tide sun 
that cast no shadows. 

“My first rapturous vision of Florence. Do you re- 
member ?” 

It was with something like a sigh that she answered: 
“Yes, I remember. The moonlight. *» She forced a 
laugh. “That made it romantic.” 

She glanced at the Palazzo clock, gave a little cry: 

“T didn’t realize it was so late. I must hurry.” 

“Why?” 

“ promised to run in and see Madame Toselli. 
She’s ill in bed.” 

“Poor old dear!” said Anthony. “A good soul.” 
He touched her arm again. “Em route, then.” 


ANTHONY AND PERELLA 267% 


They left the Piazza by the way they came, and 
turned down the narrow street leading to the Lungarno 
and the Ponte Vecchio. He accompanied her across 
the street to the head of the bridge, so picturesque and 
alluring, with its double row of buildings, and its gay 
booth-like shops and its arches, through which can be 
seen the Arno flowing, yellow and sluggish; as it has 
flowed for all appreciable time. 

Then Perella halted and put out a dismissing left 
hand. He made a gesture of protest. 

“Tve nothing to do. I’ll see you safe to the Pen- 
sion.” 

But she shook her head. “No. No. Id rather 
you didn’t.” 

He insisted, with a laugh. 

“Why?” | 

She looked at him squarely. | 

“J don’t know whether I’m superstitious or senti- 
mental or idiotic—perhaps all three—but I feel I don’t 
want us to cross the Old Bridge together ever again.” 


CHAPTER XVII 


Mranwuite, Anthony had many reasons to regard 
himself as Fortune’s Favourite. One of the first cables 
he received from America on the announcement of his 
marriage had been from the Editor-in-Chief who had 
sent him to Florence. 

“Congratulations. Hope good news won’t affect 
your putting through Burge illustrations.” 

Anthony cabled back indignantly. Not only would 
the drawings be delivered in accordance with agree- 
ment, but it was more imperative than ever for him to 
get as much work as he could possibly carry through. 

The reply came: “Good boy. Mailing special con- 
tract. Till you see it, hold off any other offers. 
Writing.” | 

To his astonished admiration of the prescience of 
the Editor-in-Chief, on the heels of the last cable there 
came glittering propositions from America. But when 
the contract arrived, the covering letter gave explana- 
tion. 

“You’re the most talked about black and white artist 
in New York. People want you for your publicity. 
You could get big money even in the movies. But it 
wouldn’t last. Now I want you for your work, which 
suits our public, for a long time, and so I enclose a 
serious contract honestly based, as far as I can see, on 
bed rock. Let me know what you think of it.” 

It was a contract for five years, during which he 
should work exclusively, in respect of drawings for re- 
production, for the Magazine Company; and the terms, 
though not fantastic, were beyond his present dreams of 


artistic income. It set him, at a swoop, on the high 
268 


ANTHONY AND PERELLA 269 


level ; it gave him command of the trivialities of luxury, 
his wife’s daily bread, but hitherto humiliatingly be- 
yond his reach. Outside the house, for instance, he 
could have his own car and man. . . . He would be de- 
pendent on his wife only for sheer board and lodging, 
which, after all, mattered not a row of pins. To pay 
for his keep would be hypersensitive idiocy. Of course, 
towards his personal expenses never a penny had she 
dared offer. But at restaurant dinner parties, she had 
slipped into his hand the settlement notes, which had 
burned his fingers and scorched his nerves. And only 
through dread of wounding her had he used her cars 
instead of hiring taxi-cabs. . . . In the generous inno- 
cence of her heart she had given him, for a birthday 
gift, a resplendent dressing-gown of brocaded silk. 
He had thanked her charmingly—but the damned thing 
had been a Nessus shirt to his pride. Now he could 
provide himself with one equally gorgeous, and, should 
she give him another, it would be a gift between 
equals. . 

Clad in this dressing-gown, he entered her room on 
the morning on which he had received the contract. It 
was his custom to come in while she was breakfasting in 
bed; hers to have prepared herself daintily for his 
visit. When she had glanced through the document 
her eyes were moist. 

“T always said that you’d make good. Wasn’t I 
right?” | 

He saw her pride in him, and it checked a generous 
impulse to attribute his success to the publicity of their 
marriage. Why kill the joy of any human being?” 

‘“‘And that leaves you free for portraits—pictures?” 

“Anything except for magazine reproduction.” 

She dried her eyes and smiled. “I’m silly—but it 
must make you so happy.” 


270 PERELLA 


It did. He went about exultant. A day or two 
later he fetched her out from within to the broad marble 
flight of steps in front of the villa. 

“There,” said he. “For you and me.” 

Below stood a smart two-seater Fiat car. 

She laid a hand on his shoulder. 

“What a child you are. As if we hadn’t got enough 
cars already.” 

““Ah—but this one’s different altogether.” 

“Til put on a hat,” said she, “and you shall drive 
me round.” 


It had been in his mind to offer Perella a lift home 
—for car and man awaited him in the Piazza del 
Duomo—when she had announced her intention of vis- 
iting the Pension Toselli. But the chance was missed. 
He turned with a sigh, as he lost the tiny little figure 
among the bustle of the Ponte Vecchio, and walked very 
thoughtfully up the Via Calzaboli to the Duomo and 
his car. | 

She was still the same: a thing of illusion, elusion, 
allusion. He repeated the words foolishly until they 
lost what he had originally taken for their meaning. 
Friends—up to a point—up to the crossing of the 
bridge; the bridge that led to the old life, to the dread- 
ful Pension, with its Brabazon ladies, its Grewsons, its 
ever smiling and perspiring Giuseppe, its heavy fatted 
flies, its smell of the week before last’s veal and spinach; 
and, also, as he turned the corner of the stair at the 
drawing-room floor, its subtle fragrance, like the music 
of the hyacinth bells of Shelley, leaving an odour within 
the sense of the passing upwards of the delicate elfin 
thing that was Perella. And the Pension held, too, the 
prim little room in which one day just before his aban- 
donment of her, poor Ariadne, he had taken her into 


ANTHONY AND PERELLA 271 


his arms and she had sealed his vows with consecrating 
kisses. . . . Verily, she was right. The Ponte Vecchio 
led to grounds that must never be retrodden. 

“Oh, damn!” he cried, as he swerved in order to 
avoid a telegraph pole that seemed to be standing in 
the middle of the road. 

The new chauffeur drew a breath of relief when the 
car halted unbroken, with its two occupants alive, in 
front of the steps of the Villa Corazza. 


There came a spell of thick autumn mist and dreary 
rain and cold that enveloped like a garment. The 
very della Robbias in the loggia looked numbed. 

“It’s high time we went to Monte Carlo,” said An- 
thony, “‘to finish the Olney Burge drawings.” 

“We go whenever you like, dear,” said Beatrice. 

The next day the Gaytons were bidden to lunch. 
Silvester came alone, perturbedly apologetic for Per- 
ella’s absence. If it were only the slight chill that had 
rendered it advisable for her to stay in bed, it would 
be no great matter. But for the last ten days or so, 
she seemed to have been running down like an old- 
fashioned clock. Of course her valiancy had repudi- 
ated suggestion of the process, until this chill had 
caught her and proved the need of winding up. He 
was anxious. The doctor advised change of climate; 
she must be put down somewhere where the sun shone 
hot and the sky was blue. He was thinking of Rapallo 
or Portofino. 

“That’s odd,” said Anthony. ‘“We’re off to Monte 
Carlo the day after to-morrow.” 

“And the good Cornelius is coming too,” said Bea- 
trice. “His chauffage central has gone wrong, and 
he’s perishing with cold in that marble villa of his.” 

“IT wonder ” Silvester began. He took off his 





Q72 PERELLA 


pince-nez and wiped them, and put them on again. “I 
wonder,” said he, putting his head to one side. 

“Do you know I’ve never been to Monte Carlo, thon 
I know something of the rest of the French Riviera—lI 
think it might do Perella good—I wonder if you’d 
mind gh 

What could kindly woman do but lay her hand on 
that of her gentle friend and declare her delight in 
the suggestion? 

“Tt7ll be splendid!” cried Anthony. ‘There’ll be five 
of us. The ideal number. If the four of us quarrel, 
we can always turn on Cornelius and rend him in 
pieces.” 

Silvester went away happy, full of the idea. 

“Tf ever there was a fortunate young woman .. . 
said Beatrice. ‘To be adored like that! Silvester at 
Monte Carlo! As useful as an Archbishop in—is 
there any really wicked place in Paris nowadays?” 

“No. Say an East-Side night club in Hades.” 

“Something like that. But she’s lucky, isn’t she?” 

“Tt’s fifty-fifty,” said Anthony. ‘Without Perella 
he’d have gone greyer and greyer until he withered 
away into a little heap of dust and ashes, with his pince- 
nez on top.” 

But when Silvester propounded the scheme to Per- 
ella, he met with incomprehensible opposition. In 
spite of the Monte Carlo season not having begun, 
there would still be crowds of people. People who 
went there only for the gambling. Just the kind of 
people Silvester disliked. Besides, they had had such 
an orgy of people in Florence. Wouldn’t it be a 
greater change for them just to go to some quiet place, 
and sit in the sun—they two, all by themselves—and 
take little walks among pine-woods and carry out the 
plan devised in the early days of their marriage, and 





99 


ANTHONY AND PERELLA 273 


read Tasso and Ariosto together from beginning to 
end? 

She was sitting up in bed, clad in a vermilion wrap, 
the colour, she declared, of the hose of Pinturicchio’s 
young men, and her pale face, topped with its black 
hair, made sleek according to the day’s fashion, peeped 
out of it, like the head of some dainty goblin out of a 
peony. 

Silvester, who had dressed himself for the day, his 
old-fashioned jacket buttoned up with its four buttons, 
sat primly on a chair by the bedside. 

“Of course, my dear,” said he. “Your will is not 
only law, but a beneficent decree.” 

She laughed, and blew him a kiss. He went on, with 
a wrinkling of the brow: 

“But D’ve rather compromised ourselves with Bea- 
trice. It was I who gave the hint. Rather a strong 
hint. Tm afraid.” 

“Did Beatrice appear to want me?” she asked. 

“Want you? Could there be anybody so dead in the 
world of living people as not to want you? Of course 
she does.” 

“‘She’s a woman I should like to love,” said Perella 
“‘but—I wonder if 

“What?” 

She smiled and shrugged. “I don’t know.” 

He took a cigarette from the battered old silver case 
which he had carried about for thirty or forty years. 

“May } Pp”? 

“You silly dear.” 

He lit the cigarette contentedly. It was curiously 
delectable to be called a silly dear by Perella; on the 
other hand, it was disconcerting to discover this im- 
palpable veil between her and Beatrice. Perella, who 
had her own unavowable shrinkings from the jaunt in 





B14 PERELLA 


common, felt her heart go out towards the simple man 
whose thoughts she read. 

“T should like to see Monte Carlo—everyone ought 
to see it—but I don’t think I should care to stay there. 
My father was there once for a month. I remember 
his coming back cursing it. No, my dearest, he hadn’t 
lost his money; he had won. He bought me, out of 
his winnings, a beautiful pair of high-heeled patent 
leather shoes, the first I’d ever had (I was fourteen at 
the time) so he didn’t look at it with the jaundiced eye 
of the ruined gambler 2 She lifted up a hand, 
and the wide sleeve fell back, revealing a slender, dark 
arm. ‘He viewed it with that wonderful sanity of his. 
He said it was the only place on earth actively and 
passionately devoted to the negation of the spiritual. 
. . . And that’s not the place where Silvester Gayton 
can be happy. Nor Perella Gayton, if it comes to 
that.” 

He agreed with her; agreed also, with the late John 
Annaway. 

“But, my dear,” said he, “‘what are we to do?” 

“Aren’t there quiet places near? I’ve heard of 
Beaulieu, Menton .. .” 

‘‘Mentone!”’ cried Silvester, whose Italianate ear 
could not attune itself to the newer French name. 
“You've hit it. You’ve solved the problem. Mentone 
for general quiet, Monte Carlo for dashes of hectic 
gaiety. You have a witch’s touch on things. What- 
ever should I do without you?” 

**You’d sit in your study, happily oblivious of rain or 
sunshine, and never dream of thinking of leaving the 
Viale Milton.” 

A while afterwards he went into his library, and the 
first thing that met his eyes was the leering glance of 
the ironical ass in the Adoration over the mantelpiece. 





ANTHONY AND PERELLA 275 


For the first time he experienced the shock of heart- 
rending association. The young man Anthony! 

Could distaste of such enforced companionship be the 
basis of Perella’s strange disclination to join the Monte 
Carlo party? The thought hurt like a sudden stab 
in the dark. . . . Presently he laughed, and sat down 
to his morning’s work. <A boy and girl flirtation, per- 
haps, years ago. What kind of young man could he 
have been to look at Perella with indifferent eyes? But 
now all that was over and forgotten. She suffered him 
with the same cool gladness as she suffered all the other 
young fools who buzzed about her in Florence. His 
attitude was irreproachable. The use of Christian 
names—why not? When one husband to another’s 
wife was Silvester to Beatrice, it would be absurd if 
wife to another’s husband should not be Perella to An- 
thony. Cornelius, too, was on Christian names terms 
with them all. In fact, the only one of the quintette 
who addressed him with impeccable respect as ‘‘Pro- 
fessor,” and called him “Sir,” was the young man, An- 
thony. . . . He turned in his chair and stared the ass 
out of countenance. If he had taken this asinine devil’s 
advice years ago, he would not now be the happiest 
elderly scholar in all the world. The eternally linger- 
ing boy in him prompted articulate speech. 

“You beastly ass!” he cried. 

Whereupon he chuckled, and, arranging his papers, 
went on with his half-finished article. 


Now, there is not much to be said about the Riviera 
jaunt, except in so far as now and then it threw two 
young people into new scenes of emotional beauty. 
Anthony and Beatrice and Cornelius stayed at the 
Hotel de Paris at Monte Carlo; the Gaytons at Menton. 
Anthony filled sketch-books with drawings and notes. 


276 PERELLA 


One of his finest drawings, one that was to bring him 
afterwards a measure of fame, was that of the weird old 
lady in old-fashioned lace who has haunted the outer 
rooms of the Casino since the beginning of Monte Carlo 
time. Cornelius confessed himself but an amiable 
feeder and gambler. Beatrice lived the pleasant little 
social life with the odds and ends of friends that hap- 
pened to find themselves on the coast, and identified 
herself, as far as possible, with Anthony’s work. Her 
happiest hours were spent with him alone, sitting by 
his side, in some mountain town—Roquebrune, Peille— 
while he experimented in a newly adopted craft of 
water-colour drawing. It was here that she began to 
suffer the dreadful fear of losing him. And the fears 
were so vague and evanescent that they shamed her. 
For, since the episode of the inconsiderable little girl at 
Dinard, with whom he had danced out of Christian 
charity, never by flighty act or glance, had he wavered 
from his loyalty. He still proclaimed her his Ma- 
donna. She fed her heart with his proclamation. Yet 
the nourishment was scant. 

One of the first letters she had received at Monte 
Carlo was from Emilia. 

“My dear, I’ve done it. A new little Scrympe is 
making it’s way out into this absurd world. Whether 
it’s going to be a future baronet or a title-less female 
remains to be seen. I’m not going to marry anybody 
next time under the rank of an Earl; for then a poor 
girl-child will at least have the satisfaction of being the 
Lady Mary something or other. . . . This civilized 
world is hard on women. . . . But, in any case, I don’t 
suppose you’ll care a damn, for you’ll be the thing’s 
grandmother in any case. .. .” The chords of silly 
nature drew her towards this unborn Thing. But it 
had so chanced that, just as she was more or less 


ANTHONY AND PERELLA 27% 


through the reading of the letter, Anthony came up, 
smiling, in the gaiety and promise of his twenties—and 
her heart sank within her like a cold stone. She put 
the letter into her vain embroidered bag. 

“From Emilia. Nothing exciting.” 

She couldn’t have told him the real news for any- 
thing on earth. 

And another dread, for she was a woman full of 
fears, arose from his newer independence. ‘This she 
tried to lay aside scornfully, as a mean thing, for she 
glowed with pride in his achievement. Yet she saw the 
quickened spirit manifest itself in almost imperceptible 
impatiences and little flashes of imperiousness, to which, 
had she been twenty years younger, she would have 
yielded with joyous humility. 

As all the world knows, South Kensington and 
Hampstead are farther apart, as the car flies, than 
Menton and Monte Carlo. In spite of Perella’s desire 
for tranquillity in which to read Tasso and Ariosto, 
there were, perforce, many meetings and excursions. 
There were also the tables. Silvester, to whom such 
things were new, found childish fascination in the fan- 
tastic chances of roulette. Beatrice, who played for 
amusement, like thousands of wealthy women of her 
class, guided him in his modest apprenticeship, in the 
not too crowded rooms of the Salle Privée. Cornelius 
Adams sat, the florid, imperturbable pillar of a solemn 
table of Trente-et-Quarante. Anthony did not play. 
When Beatrice questioned him laughingly, he reminded 
her of his first and only quarrel with her—at Dinard. 
But things, she said, were different now. He laughed. 
He was not to be taught the same lesson twice. She 
yielded, coming across one of those streaks of character 
which she respected. Yet, such was the unseen gulf 
between them that he could not tell her the reasons of 


278 PERELLA 


his Puritanical abstention. For one thing, his newly - 
gained independence was too precious for him to risk; 
for another, if he did risk it, play a high game lke 
Beatrice herself, even the least evil of tongues would 
have charged him with playing with his wife’s money. 
His pride was always a tender skin for any gnat to bite. 
And Perella, herself penniless, and terror-stricken after 
losing a thousand-franc note which, with a “Go and try 
your luck, my dear,” Silvester had thrust into her hand, 
forswore gambling for ever after. On such gambling 
occasions Fate threw Anthony and herself into pleasant 
companionship. 

They would wander round the tables, they would sit 
over mild refreshments in the Bar; they would get 
sheltering garments from the vestiaire and creep out on 
to the fresh and deserted terraces and sit, with never 
a soul, save for those aboard some unseen passing ship, 
between them and the Barbary Coast. 

The air was keen, the short, golden day having 
changed into silver night. A full moon chanced to 
irradiate the sea and show in velvet outline the cape of 
Menton and, like a far-flung beam of elusive cloud, the 
point of Bordighera. And near them, to the right, 
loomed the black promontory of Monaco twinkling with 
the mysterious lights of Monagasque homes, for ever a 
secret to those hundreds of thousands who inhabit or 
visit the coast of enchantment. Beneath them the 
waves of the tideless Mediterranean lapped lazily. A 
képi-covered gardien passed on his inscrutable round, 
thinking, good human man, of the sauté de lapin with 
lots of good garlic that awaited him on the rock out 
there, when his spell of duty would be over, or worried 
to death by lack of recent news of family whooping- 
cough. But he passed by impersonal, a symbol of the 


ANTHONY AND PERELLA 279 


awe-inspiring vigilance of the cynical Hell in Paradise 
that is Monte Carlo. 

The mass of the building towers behind them, from 
which there issues no sound. The occasional hoot of an 
automobile, the faint few bars of a forte passage from 
the band of the Café de Paris far away, an Italian 
sailor singing below in the little light-starred harbour 

. no other sounds can break the silence of the 
fragrant and moonlit night. There is a clean nip in 
the air, for coming Winter in the Temperate Zone 
calmly disregards the daily flourish of the sun. And 
two young people, none too heavily clad, sitting on a 
bench, instinctively draw close together for warmth, to 
say nothing of emotive forces of moon and stars and 
silver-banded sea and the soft, dark mysteries beyond. 

If, in such conditions, Anthony found that the new 
Perella was but the old changeling Perella, disguised as 
a wife in easy circumstances, and if Perella found that 
Anthony was the same Anthony as ever had been, whose 
was the fault but that of the moon and the stars and 
all the rest of the planetary influences that dominate 
the will of mortals? 

Not that they overstepped the limits of the friend- 
ship agreed upon between them in Florence. What they 
said mattered little. ‘They did not cross in allusion the 
forbidden bridge, but talked of hitherside things, of 
travel, of painting, of his career. He was proud to tell 
her of the contract, eager to right himself in her eyes as 
a rich woman’s husband. She described her left-handed 
attempts at painting. The telegraph system between 
brain and hand seemed to have broken down. The 
brush refused to do what she wanted it todo. The re- 
sult was the loveliest mess he could ever see on canvas. 
She longed to send it in to the Salon des Indépendents, 
or some even more modern exhibition, where she was 


280 PERELLA 


sure it would have a wild success; but Silvester, with his 
notions of artistic integrity, would not allow her. 
When they returned to Florence she must paint a por- 
trait of Anthony with her left hand; going back to 
child-technique she would achieve truth. ‘Thus they 
jested and laughed beneath the stars, and they knew not 
that their hearts sang together the song of youth, or 
that, obeying Rupert Brooke’s behest, they heard the 
“calling of the moon.” 

They would re-enter the gambling den, each making 
at the other a little grimace of disgust at the contrast 
between the late perfume of the terrace and the sour 
stench of the human emanations that has accumulated 
for fifty years in the dismal, crowded, outer rooms 
through which they must pass in order to reach the 
Salle Privée. There they blinked at the cruder light, 
and looking at each other, saw the laughter of under- 
standing in each other’s eyes. And they scanned the 
roulette tables until they found Beatrice, most amused 
of professors, side by side with her elderly and fasci- 
nated pupil. Silvester would look up at Perella, 
touch the hand laid on his shoulder, and point to the 
pile of counters in front of him. Winnings, seven 
hundred francs. An absorbing and profitable pastime. 
Then Anthony: 

“And you, dearest?” 

“About twenty mille down. Stay by me and bring 
me luck.” 

“Such a heavenly night!” So Ferny regardless 
of the spinning wheel. 

“Ch! 199 

Seventeen! Silvester had backed the number. 

“Entrancing, my dear, entrancing.” 

And Beatrice to Perella: ‘He’s the youngest thing 
in the room.” 


ANTHONY AND PERELLA 281 


Whereupon the erratic pair would drift away in 
polite search of Cornelius at his Trente-et-Quarante 
table, and, after a polite word or two of commiseration 
or congratulation, according to circumstances, would 
drift into the bar where they awaited, so they said, 
final rescue from boredom. 

And there was a mellow November day when the 
blue sea danced, and the party having stayed over- 
night in Cannes on purpose, went over to the Islands: 
Ste. Marguerite, where, in the spacious cell dug out 
of the living rock, the Man in the Iron Mask was im- 
prisoned, and whence the traitor Bazaine made his 
dramatic escape; and St. Honorat, with its monastery 
founded far back in the Dark Ages, and its vineyards, 
and its grim keep built centuries ago on a point of 
land by the monastery as a refuge for the monks 
against the Saracens, whither they would fly as soon 
as the eye of the Watcher caught the ghostly flash 
of oars on the horizon. 

They had lunched in the soft sunshine outside the 
primitive restaurant, whose patron had been chef in 
great houses, and had eaten sausage and bouillabaisse 
and grilled fowl; and the only sight remaining to be 
seen before returning to Cannes by daylight—and 
thence to Monte Carlo and Menton in time for din- 
ner—was the fortress on the other side of the minia- 
ture island. 

As you enter, you find yourself in an eleventh-cen- 
tury cloistered court with a well-head in the middle. A 
winding staircase leads to another cloister—’tis all, alas, 
an open ruin—off which is the chapel. Another short 
spiral brings you to the machicolated battlements. . . . 

Descending the last flight, Perella made a false 
step, put out her useless hand to steady herself and 
slipped. Cornelius, in front of her, helped her to rise. 


282 PERELLA 


She limped across the cloistered court to the doorway. 
The stout, brown-vestured, straw-hatted lay-brother 
in charge of the tower, stood stolid and benevolent, like 
a novel, full-length statue of Buddha. Outside she 
collapsed. The four gathered round in concern. 

“I’m so sorry,” cried Perella, sitting on the ground; 
“I’m afraid I’ve sprained my ankle. I’m not to be 
trusted to go upstairs or down. ... Next time, I 
suppose, I’ll break my neck walking on the flat!” 

They held hurried counsel. Silvester was for de- 
manding an ambulance at the near-by monastery door. 
Beatrice, stripping off tiny shoe and stocking, found 
the ankle already beginning to swell. She handed 
Cornelius a gay silk scarf which she wore twisted 
over and around her neck, and bade him climb over 
the neighbouring rocks and soak it in sea-water. 

“That’s very thoughtful of you, Beatrice,” cried 
the anxious Silvester. ‘Indeed, there’s nothing like 
a cold water compress. But how are we going to get 
my poor dear down to the boat?” 

Anthony laughed in his gay fashion. 

“Tf I can’t carry this wisp of nothing at all a couple 
of hundred yards, I’m not worthy of the name of 
man !”’ 

Whereupon he picked her up. She surrendered 
whimsically, obeying his bidding to hang on to his 
neck; and so the procession started, along the beach 
and then down the calm cypress avenue that crosses 
the island from shore to shore. Beatrice and Sil- 
vester attended them, one on each side, anxious, sym- 
pathetic, both, in their respective ways, admiring with 
something of poignancy, the careless vigour of the 
boy’s twenty years. 

Behind them marched Cornelius Adams, heavy and 
florid, carrying the gaudy and idle scarf. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


A younc man may carry in his arms a distressful 
lady en tout bien tout honneur. Anthony had picked 
her up laughingly, with the most honourable inten- 
tions in the world. When he surrendered her to the 
brawny boatman who came rushing up along the jetty, 
he was uncomfortably aware of a warmth and a frag- 
rance and a pulsation which had been unspeakably 
precious, and of which, with a sense of loss, he found 
himself bereft. Perella was almost demurely silent 
during their short voyage to Cannes; but then she 
was the centre of kindly solicitude, expected to do 
nothing but submit to the petting. On the quay the 
cars awaited them. Boatmen and chauffeurs trans- 
ferred her to the hired car which was to take Sil- 
vester and herself back to Menton. There the party 
broke up. Im the other car Beatrice and Anthony 
and Cornelius returned to Monte Carlo. 

In a day or two news came that the ankle was 
mended. Perella, able to put foot to ground, prayed 
them to lunch at the Menton hotel. Beatrice and An- 
thony went the day before their return to Florence. 
It was nothing more than a pleasant meeting. Neither 
Beatrice nor Silvester gave a thought to what tumul- 
tuous beating of hearts the romantic journey across 
the island might have occasioned. 

Said Beatrice on their way home: 

“The more I see of that little thing, the more I 
love her.” 

“I’m glad. She’s a dear,” said Anthony casually. 


“But, at first—it wasn’t a case of love at first sight?” 
283 


284 PERELLA 


“TI was critical on Silvester’s account,” she replied, 
somewhat disingenuously. “I’m so fond of him, and 
it was a bit of an experiment, wasn’t it?” 

“Well, it seems to have panned out all right,” said 
he. ‘“They’re as happy as two dear little grigs in a 
griggery. ‘They ought to live in a tiny thatched house 
in a forest; and be served by a Major-domo in a red 
cap and a white beard, and a staff of funny little 
things with sticking-out ears and green jerkins.” 

She joined in his light laugh. She could see the 
pair in the forest. He swore he would make a draw- 
ing of it, and send to Perella for a Christmas pres- 
ent. 

Beatrice left Monte Carlo, if not a radiantly happy, 
at least a contented woman. The most jealous eye 
could have seen nothing but boy and girl comradeship 
between Anthony and Perella. And, as she said, she 
had begun to take Perella to her heart. The child 
had quality. 

Florence again, with its agreeable life, together 
with Anthony’s work, occupied her time and thoughts. 
She was proud of his industry, his ever-increasing 
mastery of technique. She sang his praises, not as 
a husband, but as a laborious and successful artist, 
wherever she went. One day she put down (to An- 
thony’s joy) a sceptical Panini whose aristocratic 
Italian mind could not conceive the possibility of a 
man being fool enough to work for a living when he 
had a rich woman only too anxious to support him. 
She urged Silvester to confirm the fact of Anthony’s 
independence. He fell in love with an ancient lady of 
high lineage, a queenly woman whose dark eyes flashed 
command of the homage that had been hers for eighty 
years, an artist’s joy in stately old lace and rustling 
lavender silk. On bended knee, almost, he craved the 


ANTHONY AND PERELLA 285 


grace of a few sittings, and produced a triumph of 
portraiture. Excited and flushed, he called Beatrice 
into the studio, after his last few touches without the 
model, and said: 

“There! Who says I can’t draw?” 

The ancient lady was startlingly alive; alive in black 
and white, with the witchery of her lace and lavender 
silk. ‘Tears came into Beatrice’s eyes at the wonder 
of it. His arm went around her, her head sank on 
his shoulder. 

“The earth’s now yours for the taking,” she said. 

“Don’t I hold it now, Madonna?” said he, drawing 
her close to him. 

On a moment like that she could live for days. 

The young man’s time was filled with glad things. 
His Cambridge friend, Charlie Dent, made one of his 
meteoric passages through Florence, ever in search of 
the numismatic. Anthony swept him about the coun- 
try in his Fiat car to view private collections of which 
he had heard, or to bargain for a coin of which the 
owner possessed a duplicate. 

‘“‘Sheer madness, my dear,” he would say to Perella, 
now in Florence, presumably the better for her month’s 
sunshine on the Riviera, and acquainted with the young 
numismatist presented by Anthony to Silvester, who 
considered him a most praiseworthy person. “Sheer 
madness. If he could only put it to some imaginative 
use! You and I, with a gold coin of Nero in our 
hands, would think of its fascinating history. What 
kind of things did it buy in its time? Was it slipped 
into a ruffian’s hands as the price of murder? Was 
it ever clutched in a little pink palm as the price of 
love? . . . One could go on for ever imagining. Sil- 
vester’s the only archeologist I know who can take a 
dead bone of the past and make it live. This damn 


286 PERELLA 


fellow can’t. All he cares about is the authenticity 
and the inscription and the general condition of the 
coin. I love him, but he’s the Man with the Muck- 
rake of Bunyan. Don’t you hate men with muck- 
rakes, Perella mia?” 

Perella laughed, because she liked immensely the 
eager young man, Charlie Dent, who danced perfectly, 
and jested with easy grace, took his hobby humorously 
and treated her wonderful Silvester with the respect 
due to an eminent man. . . . She laughed too because 
it was always the old Anthony who talked. Since 
their return from the Riviera, he had slipped into the 
old mode of address when they were alone. Perhaps 
it was wrong. But the “Perella mia” sounded in her 
ears like the music of bells far away. 


Anthony had dreaded for some time the summons 
to America. It came with disconcerting abruptness. 
A man on the staff of a great American magazine 
company can’t linger, no matter how industriously, 
for an unlimited time in Europe. He must pack up 
his traps and take early boat to New York. Thither 
would Beatrice, who had postponed business affairs 
connected with her estate, accompany him. She looked 
forward to the excitement of flaunting a handsome, 
distinguished husband before the social world; also 
of converting the Ellison house from a distinguished 
mausoleum into a cheerful home for the living. She 
loved movement and a change of environment, having 
the idea that it kept her mind fresh and her body 
young. Anthony’s lack of enthusiastic outlook dis- 
appointed her. It not ‘only dulled the fine edge of 
her gladness, but reduced her to vague depression. 
He pleaded dread of the New York winter, of the 
awful publicity; pictured reporters poking up their 


ANTHONY AND PERELLA 287 


inquisitive heads like mice from every unexpected 
cranny of the house. And when could they get back? 
He went about like a man carrying a heavy doom 
on his shoulders. 

He saw Perella at a crowded tea-table at Doney’s, 
and found a moment to whisper the dreary tidings 
mto her ear. Watching her intently he noticed a 
quick tensity of face and hands. She said, after a 
while: 

“I’m glad.” 

He asked why. 

“You'll have a good time. You’re going where 
everybody’ll make a fuss of you.” 

“TY don’t think that’s very kind,” said he, and that, 
for the moment, was the extent of their talk. 


They met again a few days after at a luncheon 
party given by the Flemings, Americans of wealth, 
in honour of an ambassador passing through. They 
had bought a villa just outside Florence, a quattrocento 
combination of fortress and country-house, belonging, 
till recent years, to one of the historic princely families 
of Florence. Having taken it more as a grim ruin 
than a dwelling-place, they had spent years of love 
and reverence on its conversion into a palace suited 
for modern needs. ‘The stone-flagged salle d’armes, 
which once resounded to the clang of mailed feet and 
the clatter of weapons, immediately over the dungeons, 
was now a stately dining-room, with the heavily vaulted 
roof untouched, with its old windows pierced in the 
formidable thickness of the walls, and hung around 
with ancient and sombre tapestries. Beneath the vast, 
carved chimney-piece at the far end, a great log fire 
burned for show, but cunningly dissimilated radiators 
warmed the once bleak hall where many a man-at- 


288 PERELLA 


arms, bored with lounging, must have shivered with 
cold, and blown upon his frozen fingers. 

There were between twenty and thirty guests, half 
Italian half Anglo-Saxon, at the ceremonious meal 
which was like a formal luncheon party the world 
over. Silvester, Perella, Anthony and Beatrice were 
scattered without chance of speech one with the other, 
about the table. Next to Perella sat the Prince 
Panini, on the opposite side to Anthony. He could 
see that the Italian was making love to her within 
the limits of social discretion, and he loathed the man 
more than ever. His neighbour, an elderly Italian 
woman, said: 

©The good Commendatore will have to look after his 
pretty young wife. I know my Panini. He’s out 
for conquest.” 

“The Commendatore needn’t worry. Mrs. Gayton 
hates the sight of him.” 

“And may I ask,” said she, with a honeyed irony, 
peculiarly unpleasant to Anthony, “how you know?” 

“Mrs. Gayton and I were boy and girl together,” 
he replied, with some exaggeration of fact; “so natur- 
ally I know her likes and her dislikes.” 

“Ah, pardon,” said the lady, “I was not aware of 
the intimacy.” 

Whereupon Anthony felt a fool, which is not a senti- 
ment conducive to unclouded enjoyment of the pass- 
ing hour. 

It was only when the party streamed into the big 
drawing-room that he found himself near Perella 
Panini was still in attendance. They exchanged frigid 
common-places on the beauty of the villa and the im- 
peccable taste of their hosts. The latter, meanwhile, 
at the request of the ambassador, took straggling 
guests on a tour of the historic stronghold. Outside, 


ANTHONY AND PERELLA 289 


there was the moat and the barbican and the restored 
old gardens, stately with cypresses and formal hedges 
and fountains and long-paved vistas, with here and 
there statues gleaming mellow in the late December 
sunshine. Most of the guests stood on the brink of 
the garden, admired and shivered, and took the op- 
portunity of bolting back into the comfortable warmth 
of the house. Anthony and Perella lingered. Panini, 
separated from them for a moment or two, came up. 
Mr. Fleming was going to show the company the view 
from the battlements. 

“Many thanks, Prince,” said Anthony, “but Mrs. 
Gayton and I are fascinated by this beautiful Italian 
garden.” 

Panini bowed politely. 

“The intolerable beast,” said Anthony. 

She laughed. ‘Why shouldn’t you like him?” 

““A fellow who dares to look at you as he does... . 
I'd give my soul to be able to kick him from here to 
Hades.” 

They strolled, alone, down the flagged path. 

“After all, my dear boy, I don’t see that it’s any of 
your business,” she said. } 

“That’s the devil of it,” he replied gloomily. 
Then: 

*“‘You’re not cold? You don’t mind walking a bit? 
I hate all these people to-day. 'They’re none of them 
real. All jerking themselves about like fantocchini. 
.. - We'll go in, if you like.” 

But she declared that the air was sweet after the 
super-heated house, and on these southern walks the 
sun was comfortably warm. 

They wandered they scarce knew whither in the 
maze of a garden; cypress and laurel and statue and 
fountain and vistas to the snow-topped hills already 


290 PERELLA 


glowing pink in the reflections of the approaching sun- 
set. They found a marble pavilion, an untouched, ex- 
quisite bit of cinquecento design, a dainty dome sup- 
ported on classical pillars with composite capitals. A 
marble bench with cushions, facing the nesting sur, 
invited them. Again he asked: 

“Not cold, Perella mia?” 

She smiled. ‘Not a bit.” She had kept on her fur 
coat, dreading the possible cold of vast old Italian 
palaces—at dear Cornelius Adams’s house one perished, 
except in his cosy coal-fire-warmed library, but here she 
had been oppressed by the heat. 

“Toast-warm,” she said. 

“T’m glad of this precious minute with you,” said 
Anthony. “It’s good-bye.” 

“For how long?” 

“God knows.” 

“I’m glad,” she said again, and again he asked why. 

“Don’t you see? It’s best for both of us,” she said 
in her direct fashion. “We agreed that the bridge 
should be a sort of symbolical barrier—betweeen this 
side and that side of our lives—perhaps that side 
doesn’t count much for you, but it does for me. Tm 
nothing if not frank—and we’ve been crossing it over 
and over again without quite noticing it. So it has 
got to stop. I should be happier if you stayed in 
America altogether and never came back to Florence.” 

He put his elbows on his knees and buried his head 
in his hands. That calm little voice yet had a vibra- 
tion in it to which he felt a response in quivering 
nerves. He groaned. 

‘What a damned fool I’ve been.” 

“Possibly,” she said. “But that’s no reason why 
I’m going to let you be a damneder fool.” 

The reddening sun which hovered over the low-lying 


ANTHONY AND PERELLA 291 


hill swept a golden path towards them in their marble 
temple, flushing on its way the cheek of a Diana, chaste 
huntress, and flooded them in its warmth. Anthony 
raised a miserable face. 

“In a way it has been my fault—in another way it 
hasn’t. It’s your own dear fault, which you can’t 
help, of being Perella. Of course you’re right. It’s 
best I should stay in America, and be in Florence as 
little as I can. But what the devil am I going to do 
without you, my dear?” 

“The same as I'll have to do,” said Perella. 

“It’s a bit impossible, isn’t it?” 

“Let us go,” she said. ‘All this is foolishness.” 

“Just two more minutes,” he pleaded. “The sun 
will go down and we’ll be driven in anyhow. It’s our 
last moment together for God knows how long.” 

“What’s the good?” said Perella. “We have our 
loyalties—you and I—which matter more than any- 
thing else in the world.” 

“Yes. Don’t I know?” said he helplessly. 

And so, while the sun on the top of the hill grew a 
vast and blood-red symbol of passion that in an instant 
was to be plunged into darkness, they fought out the 
elemental battle between love and loyalty. And at the 
end, though unyielding, she broke down and wept bit- 
terly, and his arms went around her. The arms of no 
living man could have done otherwise. 

She hid her face. “I was so happy until you came 
to Florence. Why did you come?” 

“It was Fate. God knows I didn’t seek you out.” 

“IT thought it was all over as far as you were con- 
cerned. So I carried on without thinking much. 
But it has been lately when I see that you still care. 
. . . You do, don’t you?” she asked, somewhat tragi- 
cally. 


292 PERELLA 
“T do, God forgive me,” said he. “I know I 
oughtn’t to use the word ‘love’—between us I’ve made 
it rather cheap. But you’re the love of my life.” 
“T believe it now, but it’s all so hopeless and wrong.” 
“Yes. Hopeless and wrong. What are we to do?” 
They looked at the blood-red sun touching the hill- 
top with its lower rim. But it gave them no help. 


Silvester and Beatrice, the tour of the villa com- © 
pleted, met among the guests, some of whom were al- 
ready taking their leave, and agreed upon departure. 
They were going back to Florence together, as they had 
come, in her large car. 

‘“Where are those two?” 

“They went out into the garden, I think,” said Sil- 
vester. 

On the first terrace they met Panini. He said, with 
smiling politeness: 

“Are you looking for a 

“Yes. My husband and Mrs. Gayton.” 

“T have just seen them,” said he, “in the little marble 
temple”—he waved an indicating hand—“at the end 
of the terrace where there are the Canovas.” 

He bowed and went into the house. 

“T can’t bear that man,” said Beatrice. ‘He smiles 
like a jaguar.” 

“T take men as I find them, my dear,” said Silvester. 

She laughed. ‘“You’re always like the tender-hearted 
Scottish minister: ‘Let us now pray for the puir deil. 
Naebody prays for the puir deil! ” 

He stoutly repudiated the charge of softness. Some 
people he disliked very much indeed. He gave her 
to understand that his dislikes were as devastating as 
poison-gas. 

Beguiling the way with such innocent discourse, they 





ANTHONY AND PERELLA 293 


followed the flagged cypress-hedged paths in search 
of the truants. ‘They turned the corner of the Canova 
walk, where the statues glowed, and there in the Tem- 
ple at the end, in the full red of the setting sun, they 
saw, as Panini had told them, Anthony and Perella. 
But it was an Anthony kneeling by Perella’s side, with 
his arms around her waist, and a Perella bending down 
with her arms around his neck, and their lips were meet- 
ing. 
The elder pair stood for a moment, stone-stiff in 
frozen terror. Beatrice first recovered. She dragged 
Silvester back, beyond the corner, out of the dreadful 
vista. 

_ “My God!” she said. “Oh, my God!” 

Silvester stood stricken, as though by the sweep of 
twenty years. He took off his pince-nez, put them 
absent-mindedly into his jacket pocket, and passed 
both hands over his eyes. He murmured foolishly: 

“I ought to have taken the warning. Two warn- 
ings.” 

“You suspected.” 

“No, no.” 

“But you talk of warnings.” 

“They were nothings. Mere silliness.” 

Afterwards he could not make out how the eye of 
the ironical ass occurred to him in this, the most des- 
perate moment of his life. T’o Beatrice he could not 
confess the triviality. 

She said again: 

“My God!” And then: “What are we going to 
do?” 

He fished out his glasses again, and put them 
on. 
“We can’t take them by surprise, like that. It 
would be too—too—indecent—horrible——” 


294 PERELLA 


She moved up the path, mechanically, like a sleep- 
walker. 

“Yes, I suppose it would.” 

‘We had better walk back to the house,” said Silves- 
ter, after a few steps in silence. ‘“They’ll join us there 
soon, for the sun will have gone down. We must do 
nothing rash, unconsidered. . . .” 

““My heart is breaking,” she said with a sob. 

He took her arm in a kind, firm hand. 

““Mine too. But our souls must be stronger than 
our hearts.” 

She murmured a hopeless “Yes,” and they went on 
their way. ‘They mounted the steps of the great 
terrace that swept the garden front of the house, and 
there, as though he awaited them, stood Panini in fur 
coat and hat cocked at a truculent angle, with a vague 
woman who, in their eyes, had scarce existence. 
Panini saluted. 

“Have you found the runaways?” 

Beatrice pulled herself together. 

“No. The temple was empty. I have already no- 
ticed that you have a genius for imaccuracy, Prince 
Panini.” 

They entered the house where a sprinkling of guests 
still remained. The hostess came up cheerfully sug- 
gesting tea and bridge. They declined; affairs im 
Florence called them. 

“We’re only waiting for my husband and Mrs. Gay- 
ton, who are just coming in from the garden.” 

Other people came up for an anguished moment’s 
polite chatter. Left alone, they went into one of the 
deep embrasures. 

“We haven’t yet decided what to do. If Vd only 
myself to think of I could grapple with it—perhaps— 
I don’t know—but you’re in it with me. It’s you and 


ANTHONY AND PERELLA 295 


I. I don’t want to do anything that may hurt you. 
Say quickly what you think.” 

Again she felt his kind, firm touch on her arm. 

“Say nothing. We’ve seen nothing. What we saw 
was not meant for us to see. We must think, each of 
us, very deeply, and then we must meet and talk 
heart to heart, as you and I, my dearest friend, can 
talk, and then only can we decide on the best course 
to follow.” 

“Perhaps you’re right,” she sighed assentingly. 
“But itll be hard.” 

“If I feel equal to it, how much more must you.” 

“Yes. But you’re a man,” she said, impressed by 
his nervous strength, “and I’m a woman. That makes 
a lot of difference.” 

“T never thought that you, of all folk, would con- 
descend to plead woman’s weakness,” said he. 

She winced under what she felt to be a tiny lash. 
She drew herself up. 

“T won’t. Ill do as you say. I promise.” 

They turned into the room to see Anthony and 
Perella making way towards them. 

“T see everybody’s going,” said Anthony, master of 
himself. “I hope we haven’t kept you waiting?” 

“SW ell—er—-we were waiting a little,” said Silvester, 
falling into his shy manner. 

“I’m sorry. It was my fault,” said Anthony. 

“We went further than we expected, and got a bit 
lost,” said Perella, with calm eyes. ‘But you see, we’ve 
found our way back.” 

“Yes,” smiled Anthony. “Here we are.” 

It was not a merry drive back to Florence. An- 
thony chose to sit outside next the driver. On the 
journey out, said he, he had taken up too much room 
inside and made everybody uncomfortable. Perella 


296 PERELLA 


insisted on sitting on the little seat, so that Silvester 
should be at the back with Beatrice. 

“He loves it—hates strapontins. While I’m just 
like a fly and can be perfectly happy anywhere.” 

So intensely enwrapped in their own thoughts were 
the three, that none of them realized, till the car 
stopped in the darkness at the door in the Viale Milton, 
that not a word had been spoken during the journey. 

Having put down the Gaytons, Anthony entered the 
car. 

‘A dud party,” said he. 

She replied, for the sake of saying something: 

“Typical of Florence.” 

“What’s wrong with Florence?” he asked. 

“Let us call it provincial,” she said. “I'll be glad 
when we’re back in New York, won’t you?” 

“I suppose so,” said he, looking out of the car 
window. 

At the villa she declared that her head was split- 
ting—the cause, the idiotically over-heated rooms. 
Perhaps, also, she may have caught a chill in the car. 
Anthony was as ever solicitous. Anyhow, she would 
go to bed, and feed on aspirin and bouillon for dinner, 
and would see him in the morning if she were better. 

Anthony rang up Charlie Dent at his hotel, and 
arranged with him to dine together at Betti’s. He 
was in no mood to eat out his heart alone in that vast 
and accusing house. 


PART VI 


SILVESTER AND BEATRICE 
CHAPTER ‘XIX 


Two forlorn conspirators met, the following after- 
noon in Silvester’s library, almost with a sense of 
guilt, having been put to undignified subterfuge so as 
to arrange a secret interview. 'To shut themselves up 
in a room, either in the Villa Corazza or the flat, with 
Anthony or Perella, as the case might be, wondering 
what they were talking about, had been repugnant to 
their honest minds. For Beatrice it was a simple 
matter to leave the Villa without explanation. She 
had pleaded headache so as to lunch, listless and silent, 
opposite a none too ebullient Anthony, and then had 
announced her intention of paying vague calls after 
her customary siesta. Anthony said he might run 
down to Doney’s to see whom he might see. Would 
Beatrice be looking in after her visits? Possibly not, 
she said. Her head could not stand the clatter and 
the chatter of the place. ‘Thus, her unquestioned free- 
dom of movement. 

Silvester, too, might have gone forth unchallenged 
on his own errands. But, as they had arranged, 
over the telephone, this meeting at the Viale Milton, 
Perella must be spirited away. He had to summon 
the aid of the Marchesa della Torre as a benevolent 
djinn, who on the ground of depression, illness, lone- 
liness, should bid Perella to lunch and keep her the rest 
of the afternoon. The Marchesa swearing loyal obe- 
dience, he had gone into Perella’s studio, where, tm the 
northern December light Perella, pale and wraithlike 
in a black painter’s blouse, sat before a great canvas 
trying to make a charcoal copy of a drapery on the 
lay-figure with her left hand. Her eagerness to accept 
the Marchesa’s invitation had hurt him horribly. He 


said, a heart-rent Machiavelli: 
297 


298 PERELLA 


‘“‘She seems to be so down on her luck. Stay with her 
as long as ever you like—till dinner-time if you can.” 

Already, even as he spoke, she was wiping her 
blackened fingers on her blouse. 


When Beatrice was announced he met her in the 
vestibule and brought her mto the library, where a 
cheerful wood fire was burning. Over the mantelpiece 
the curtain was drawn across the disturbing picture 
of the Adoration. But the room glowed rich and 
warm in the shaded hght which half revealed the mel- 
low books in the cornice-high cases, and the restful 
pictures here and there in their dull old-gold frames, 
and the graceful lines of furniture and the great library 
table neatly laden with books and papers and the 
virtuoso’s accessories to the writer’s craft. 

He would have relieved her of her furs, but she 
motioned him away, and, sitting down, spread out her 
hands before the fire. 

“It’s cold—damp and penetrating. Such a change 
from yesterday.” She laughed blankly. ‘“Every- 
thing seems to have changed since _ yesterday. 
Even the weather.” 

He stood about her in his nervous way. 

“Will you have some tea? It might warm you.” 

She shook her head. ‘No thanks. At the best its 
only a fussy futility. Besides, it isn’t my body that’s 
cold, really. It’s my heart that’s frozen.” She stared 
at the blazing logs, and, after a pause: ‘What are 
we going to do?” 

“That, my dear,” said he, “is what we’ve met to 
discuss.” 

He offered her a cigarette from his battered silver 
case, which she declined, and lit one himself and drew 
up a chair. 


SILVESTER AND BEATRICE 299 


“How far do you think it has gone?” she asked. 

He made a quick movement. “Yesterday was the 
furthest. I'd stake my life on it.” 

She assented wearily. “But it was far enough. If 
this is a hell of twenty-four hours, what must a Hell 
of Eternity be like?” 

He rose and threw his half-smoked cigarette into 
the fire and touched her crouching shoulder. 

“A bad time, my dear?” 

She nodded, miserable. He sighed. 

MY t00.”’ 

There was silence, for there was an agony in their 
hearts too poignant and too sacred for mutual avowal. 
How could they admit each other beyond the veil 
of last night’s anguished vigil? 

Could she tell him this... ? That wretchedly, 
with all her pride in the dust, she had crept in the small, 
dead hours to Anthony’s room, and, with infinite pre- 
cautions of noiselessness, had held the door a moment 
ajar, only to hear the rhythmic breath of the untroubled 
sleep of youth. ‘That she had closed the door with 
the same infinite care, and had crept back, whipped 
and scourged and beaten, to bed. Anthony awake, 
tossing restlessly like herself, she could have staked 
everything on one desperate emotional appeal; but, An- 
thony asleep, calmly unconscious of the pangs of con- 
science or love or desire . . . how could she wake him, 
how could she await the rubbing of eyes, the pleasant, 
casual, half-sleepy, inevitable question? And how 
could she tell Silvester that, with a frantic woman’s 
disloyalty, she had broken their compact of silence? 

She stared at the flames. Presently, her body 
warmed, she threw her fur cloak on the back of the 
chair, and her comfortless hat on the floor. And Sil- 
vester, who after nervous pacing about the room, had 


800 PERELLA 


sat by the library table, his head in his hands, was too 
much preoccupied with the memory of his vigil to 
notice her action. 

For, how could he, on his part, admit her, all dearest, 
save one, of women though she was, and bound to him 
by this chain of common suffering, into the secrecy 
of last night’s abominable pain? 

They had dined together; a cheerless meal. Perella, 
pale and tired, had striven valiantly to talk; of house- 
hold things, of the meal, of his little comforts, of pat- 
terns of cloth that had come that day from his London 
tailor. She wore the last theme jestingly threadbare. 
Since his university days he had gone to the same old- 
fashioned, historic firm, and they had supplied him— 
both sides, tailor and Silvester, too proud to try on— 
with the same old historic suits. His sensitiveness per- 
ceived an underlying pathos in her jests, and his kindly 
responses seemed to be made over a swallowed sob. 

The meal over, he had gone into his library where— 
he invented an urgent telegram—he must make speed 
with a tough and worrying article. He had kissed her 
good night confusedly somewhere, but not on her lips 
which she did not offer. In the library, the eye of 
the white, curvetting ass carrying his contemptible bur- 
den of a credulous Mage, gleamed with the cynical 
mockery of all the Devils concentrated in one unutter- 
able Beast. He drew the curtain angrily. ... He 
had sat on his library chair, and the memories of his 
married life, such as only God can share with the soul 
of a good yet pitiable man, smote him to despair. And 
the bleak hours passed by, until, impelled by God knows 
what complexes of desperate emotion, he too, had crept 
to a dear and sacred door. He had listened in the 
silence of the night. He had heard sounds coming 
from within which, at first, puzzled his confused senses. 


SILVESTER AND BEATRICE 3201 


Then, at last, he recognized the catching of the breath 
of a woman’s sobs. He had heard it once before— 
and it had torn his heart to ribbons—when Perella had 
received her sentence of the useless hand. He had 
shrunk back as though he had come, miserable eaves- 
dropper, upon some soul secret in which he had no 
part. He made his way to his own room, gropingly, 
like a blind man, leaving the electric light blazing in 
library and passage. 

He, too, in intention had broken the compact of silence. 

The glowing, half burned-out logs fell in a clatter 
on the hearth. This roused them. He started up and 
threw a couple of fresh logs on the fire. Said Beatrice: 

“‘We don’t seem to be getting on, do we?” 

“It takes a little time to establish a common atmos- 
phere. There’s such a thing, you know, as refraction,” 
said he in answer to a querying glance. “When we 
see the sun disappear below the horizon, it has really 
sunk some time before. But we all see it sink simultane- 
ously because we look at it through the same refracting 
medium. If everybody had his own atmosphere, every 
mortal eye would see the setting sun at a different 
height from the horizon, and there would be dreadful 
confusion. We have only to extend this truth from 
physical to spiritual phenomena. You and I must 
get the same atmosphere so as to have the same angle 
of refraction. Otherwise we can never come to the 
same conclusion. Perhaps sitting quiet a while to- 
gether has helped us more than we realize.” 

“T was thinking of the last twenty-four hours,” 
said Beatrice. | 

“So wasI. Which may go to help my little pedantic 
theory.” 

She sighed: ““We’re both of us wretchedly unhappy.” 

Silvester rose, took a cigarette from the chased box 


302 PERELLA 


on the mantelpiece, and mechanically threw it back 
again and resumed his seat. 

“T must say something—something that must hurt, 
my dear—but T’ve had it in my mind ever since yes- 
terday. It’s a proposition—a dreadful proposition. 
It’s this: supposing I had been of my wife’s genera- 
tion—two or three years, say, older than herself, and 
you had been younger than your husband, should we 
have acted yesterday in the way we did?” 

She covered her face with her hands, and answered 
the underlying thought rather than the words. 

‘“'That’s the torment of it.” After a bit she dashed 
her hands away rather wildly. 

“I can’t bear you to reproach me. Perhaps I de- 
serve it. But I’ve tried—God knows how I’ve tried— 
to keep young; not only in my poor face and figure 
and so on—the physical side of life—but im mind and 
outlook and freshness of enthusiasm .. . everything 
that could blind him to the gap of nearly twenty years 
between us ... and it has been no good... I’ve 
seen things coming ... and now.. .” 

She broke down and buried her face in the curve 
of arm and forearm, on the side of the easy chair, 
and cried helplessly. : 

Silvester, unromantic; bald, scrubbily white- 
moustached, looked at her for a few moments, and his 
eyes behind the thick lenses were red. He came and sat 
on the further arm of the chair, and touched her with a 
diffident and tender hand. 

“Between Perella and me there is a difference of 
over thirty years,” he said gently. “I’ve given her 
all that a doting man can give to a woman. Ali ex- 
cept the one thing beyond my power. Do you know 
what that is, my dear??? He confirmed her head’s faint 
motion. Youth.” 


SILVESTER AND BEATRICE 303 


He rose. She lifted a tear-stained face, and 
stretched out her arms. 

“But I could give him ” She paused, making 
queer gestures with her fingers as though to conjure 
up in the man’s mind all the sexes’ differences, and 
blurted out on a strained note: “youth.” 

He caught her agitated hands and held them for 
a few moments, and again she felt how kind and strong 
were his. 

“My dearest friend,’? said he, “we have broken, 
you and I, an inexorable law of life. Some have done 
it and gone scot-free and been happy. But others, 
like us, have had to pay the penalty. ... It’s not a 
case,” he continued, “of the old formula: “The woman 
pays.’ For here the man pays too—equally.” 

She rose impatiently and moved about the dimly 
lit scholarly room. 

“I know. We’re both in the same Hell. We've 
got a common atmosphere right enough. And I sup- 
pose we must pay the same penalty, each in our re- 
spective ways. Anthony and I are going to America 
very soon. I can say I’m bored with Florence, and 
I can sell the Villa Corazza and buy a place in Eng- 
land, which will please him. We never need come back 
to Florence. You two can stay here untroubled by us. 
We can keep up the pretence of ignorance, and trust 
to luck. But we’ll lead, neither of us, anything like 
human lives, with this at the back of us. We’ll all 
the time have the problem of those other two. What 
will they be feeling? What undercurrents . . . per- 
haps what treacheries, for they mayn’t be able to help 
themselves... ? It isn’t as if they had just met, 
and it was a mere flare-up—Anthony’s young, and has 
a way with women; I’ve seen it a hundred times—but 
up to now he has been loyal to me I know. Trust a 





304 PERELLA 


woman who looks after a young man with the eye of 
an old cat to know. . . . I’ve been jealous, of course, 
but without reason. And now—this! It isn’t recent. 
I’m certain of it. They lived in the same Pension here 
for months. It’s against reason that they shouldn’t 
have been drawn together. Against reason. I’ve had 
a dread of it since the first night I met her in the villa. 
She stood like a tongue of flame. Any man would have 
been mad for her. We've been fools .. .” 

She swept a hand. } 

“Youth to youth. The eternal law. Yes, we’ve 
been fools,” said Silvester. 

She turned on him quickly. 

“Do you know anything about it?” 

‘Sit down, dear Beatrice, and I'll tell you the little 
that I know.” 

It was but a little, yet it illuminated dark spaces. 
There was the nurse’s report of a cabled answer to a 
letter on the evening of his first encounter with the 
jeering stare of the white ass. There was also a trivial 
something, noted mechanically by an eye trained to 
the observance of artistic detail, to which, however, his 
mind, working in paths apart from social convention, 
had attached no particular importance. In Venice 
she had worn a ring, a pretty gem, an intaglio of dainty 
quality. During her illness she had kept the ring 
on her finger. With a queer suddenness it had disap- 
peared. ‘Then things so emotional had happened that 
he had forgotten its existence. But now he had re- 
membered. The ring had been on her left hand— 
for the right had been in plaster of Paris—and his 
accurate visionary memory showed it on the engage- 
ment finger. Therefore there had been between them 
all the love and romance and passion of Romeo and 
Juliet, frozen beyond doubt by unkindly circumstance, 


SILVESTER AND BEATRICE 3805 


in what to them was the long ago. And now the sun of 
circumstance had thawed the frozen love, and it had 
burst into new strength, and many waters could not 
drive it out. Such was the text of Silvester’s sor- 
rowful homily. 

“J can understand Perella marrying you,” said 
Beatrice. ‘“‘She’s blameless. A God’s good angel— 
that’s you, my dear—came down from heaven and 
took her away from every kind of suffering. But 
Anthony. Why?” She clutched her bosom with both 
hands. ‘Why, when he was bound to this girl?” 

Silvester made the little Latin gesture of helpless- 
ness. “That,” said he, ‘is outside my philosophy.” 

“But can’t you think?” She leaned forward in her 
chair, with eager and wrinkled brow. “Why? I was 
a rich and foolish woman, ready, in the inside of me, 
to throw myself into his arms. If he had been a mere 
waster, a fortune-hunter, it would have been so easy 
for him. But no. To give him the honour he de- 
serves, he has always treated that side of things with 
scorn. Our two years of secret marriage, for instance. 
Every little gift of mine must be a trifle. . . . So why? 
Why? All the time it was I who. . . I who——” 

She broke off suddenly and, stiff in her chair, stared 
in front of her as at instantaneously evoked ghosts of 
memories; memories that should have been so radiant 
in beauty—now stricken and withered, haggardly re- 
proachful. 

They showed the clutching fingers of the woman who, 
never having known love, desperately resolved to grasp 
it before it should be for ever beyond her reach. ‘They 
showed her the imperious wiles which she had exercised 
with the command of her wealth and her influence 
and her lingering beauty. It was she who had willed, 
and he who had obeyed. She had held out lures of in- 


306 PERELLA 


creasing intensity which he could not resist. Had she 
been syren of the syrens, leading youth to destruction, 
she could not have used her sex with more diabolical 
subtlety. . . . It was she who had dragged a first un- 
willing yet fascinated boy away from his young love. 
. . . She had done it unknowingly. That was her sole 
defence. That he had not told her of Perella was her 
ground of accusation. But it was she herself who 
had willed it from the beginning. She had never been 
honest with herself. From the first she had spread 
the snare that had eventually drawn him where she had 
craved him to be, within the hungering and foolish 
clasp of her arms. . . . And all the memories of their 
lives together stalked before her like unhallowed spec- 
tres. 

The sweet-natured woman shivered in an agony 
of self-abasement. Her integrity exaggerated the 
stain on her soul. . . . Other women of her acquaint- 
ance had married young men or taken them more or 
less openly as lovers, and in either case paid them for 
ostensible fidelity, and a cynically tolerant world had 
accepted every situation, reserving to itself the right 
to say devastating things about them behind their 
backs. In this contemptuous criticism she had taken 
her share. Yet it had never occurred to her to dese- 
crate her love by comparison with these horribly venal 
matings. It had been a thing apart, with never a 
sordid thought to mar its beauty. But now, in her 
agony of self-indictment, she confessed that she would 
have paid—tlike any of the scorned women who took 
young boys as husbands and maintained them in idle- 
ness. It was to Anthony himself that she owed salva- 
tion from that depth of the abyss. Had he wavered, 
she would have had no right to hold herself higher than 
the others. 


SILVESTER AND BEATRICE 307 


There were memories that passed, ghastly in their 
sentence of humiliation. 

Again the picture recurred, as it had recurred with 
maddening iteration throughout the past twenty-four 
hours, of the despairing and passionate embrace of 
those two. Would she ever forget, till she died, the 
tensity of the girl’s face? 

She collapsed, huddled up in the chair. The time 
for tears was past. How long she had been staring 
at the ghosts she knew not. It seemed hours. She 
glanced, with some concern, at Silvester who sat, ap- 
parently unaware of any state of catalepsy, looking 
drearily into the fire. 

“You have no more reason to reproach yourself 
for marrying Anthony than I have for marrying 
Perella,” he said, as though carrying on a conversation 
broken by a few moments’ pause. ‘The past is ir- 
revocable. That’s the worst of platitudes—they’re 
always so true. We’ve got the present and the future 
to consider. Tell me. Do you think they know or fear 
we saw them yesterday, or suspect that we have any idea 
of what’s between them?” 

“I’m quite sure he doesn’t,” said Beatrice, miserably. 

“T, too, feel certain about Perella.” 

“Does that help us very much?” 

“Considerably.” He rose and made a few steps to 
and fro, his hands behind his back. “It helps vitally. 
It, in fact, clears the ground. My dear,” he said, 
halting by her side, “I’m afraid I can’t help my dry 
analytical mind working in its usual way, in spite of 
what I’m feeling. You must forgive me. As far 
as I can see, there are only three courses open. One. 
Tell them what we know, as gently as possible. It 
would be very painful for everybody, yet we could 
stake our faith in human values. It would be an 


308 PERELLA 


honest course; the one we should undoubtedly follow 
if we were of the same ages as they. Of this we have 
already spoken this afternoon. I think we realized 
the hopelessness of it.” 

“Oh, God! yes,” said Beatrice. 

‘Therefore we must eliminate it. Two. Let things 
drift. You and Anthony cut yourselves away from 
Florence! Perella and I anchor ourselves more 
firmly here. That seems reasonable. But is it? One 
of two things must happen. Either what you your- 
self said about us, leading anything but human lives 
with those two eating out their hearts for each other— 
the Atlantic between them—all the gladness of life gone 
out for everybody, and a poor forged imitation of hap- 
piness, if it’s even that, for us all; or—let us face it— 
the call of Love and Youth will be too strong, and 
Anthony will not go back to America—at least not 
with you. If he goes, it will be with Perella.” 

Beatrice hid her face and moaned. “Oh, they 
couldn’t, they couldn’t.” 

“They could, my dear,” said he, with a catch in his 
voice. “Seven hundred years ago—in this city—the 
pair are immortalized and live enshrined in the pity 
and sympathy of all the ages. And, a hundred years 
ago—or so it seems—what I thought was the impossible 
happened.” 

She turned round swiftly, and caught his hand. 

“My poor dear—I never thought—I had almost for- 
gotten i: 

He said very gently: ‘“Youseeitcan happen. But 
it mustn’t happen. You agree to that?” 

“Anything but that.” 

“So we have to eliminate course number two,” said 
he. “There remains the third. Are we willing, are 
we strong enough, to take it?” 





b) 


SILVESTER AND BEATRICE 309 


He paused. His tone sounded in her ears like a 
doom. She sat upright and stared at him. 

“IT can’t guess what you mean.” 

“Why should four lives be ruined when two can be 
saved?” 

‘You mean Anthony’s and Perella’s?” 

VY as,?? 

Her lips twitched, and her eyes were very piteous 
and it took all her courage to find her voice. 

“You wouldn’t have suggested this—what it is as 
yet I don’t know—but, whatever it is, you wouldn’t 
have suggested it if—if we were the same age as 
they—if we weren’t old—old 2 

The wretched tears came again. He touched her 
hand tenderly. 

“Not old, my dear. At least, not you. But older 
than they are.” 

“Oh, what does it matter—a few years more or 
less—I know. You and I, man and woman, are of 
the same age. ‘Tell me straight what’s in your mind. 
The only way out.” 

The top button of his jacket was unfastened. He 
buttoned it, straightened himself and drew his jacket 
tight around him. 

“Why shouldn’t we go out of their life and leave 
them to remould it—to their hearts’ desire?” 

“That I’ve grasped. But, even if we could bring 
ourselves to such a thing—how could it be done?” 

When it came to the agony point of clear proposi- 
tion, Silvester broke down. He had kept himself strong 
by intellectual effort, marshalling facts and arguments 
in his clear brain. He had hoped that Beatrice would 
have divined his scheme in its broad purpose; that she 
would have accepted or rejected it according to her 
vision of the future. Through her lack of perception, the 





310 PERELLA 


altruistic dream that had inspired his simple soul had 
faded into the light of common day. He must reduce it 
to dreadful details. He lost his great confidence. 

“If you can’t see, how can I tell you?” 

He turned away, and gave her the spectacle of an 
old man’s tears. 

Then only did the cloud that hung over her brain he- 
gin to lift, and there lay revealed to her the most fan- 
tastic proposal that ever man made to woman. 

It is a factor in their sex’s defensive scheme that 
women, in such crises, should be more brutally direct 
than men. She rose, and said: 

“You mean that you and I—somehow—should de- 
hiberately give those two grounds for divorce?” 

He raised a hand from a hidden face. 

“What else?” 

Reaction came, with a clamour within her, and swept 
her on a wave of unreason. 

“Never. Never in this life. How can you make 
such a suggestion?” | 

In the surge, all that had been said in the past two 
poignant hours was forgotten. 

“How can a man, loving a woman, coldly think of 
throwing her into another man’s arms?” She said 
many foolish things. Then: “Love her! How can 
you love her?” : 

He waited until she had calmed. 

“T love her so much,” said he, “that I am willing to 
sacrifice all that I hold dear for the sake of her happi- 
ness.” 

“T can’t,” she said desperately. “I can’t. I’m not 
big enough.” She flashed defiant. “Why should I 
sacrifice what’s dearer to me than to you—to a woman 
than to any man—my good name? Why should I 
make myself the laughing-stock of America, England 


SILVESTER AND BEATRICE 3ll 


and Italy, so that Anthony should go off with another 

woman? Let him go, but not with my connivance. 

. . - No, my friend! The scheme’s insane. Better 

let things drift and trust to life from day to day.” 
“As you will,” said he. ‘God help us all.” 


She left him, went home, conscious of herself as an 
outer shell of a woman with all within her torn into 
formless shreds. A footman opened the door of the 
villa. Baratelli received her in the vestibule. She put 
the mechanical question: 

*“‘Any telegrams, telephone calls?” 

“Only one,” said he. “From the Signora Gayton. 
It was for Mr. Blake. I told the Signora that she would 
find him at Doney’s.” 

She went up to her room and tried to rest. Later she 
heard Anthony’s step along the corridor. A slammed 
door signified his entrance into his own room. 'The 
maid, Dennever, came dreadfully, impersonally punc- 
tual. Beatrice let herself be dressed. Towards the 
end of her toilette Anthony entered, young and spruce 
in dinner-jacket. She held up a protective garment. 

“I’m not quite ready. Ill meet you downstairs.” 

When she went down she met him in the small salon 
that led into the dining-room. She noted that the 
conventional cocktail which he always drank before 
dinner remained untouched on its usual little table. 

He was walking up and down the room. He smiled 
politely as she entered. 

“T hope you didn’t go to Doney’s to look for me? 
I was called away. I left a message.” 

“No. I hadn’t time to go to Doney’s.” 

“I’m glad,” said he. “What have you been doing 
with yourself?” 

“A call or two. Then home. And you?” 


312 PERELLA 


“I met a couple of stray Americans—artists—you 
don’t know them... .” 

Her heart sank cold. For the first time she knew 
that he deliberately lied to her. His Americans were 
Perella. ‘They had met either at the Marchesa della 
Torre’s, whither Silvester, in his subtle innocence had 
sent her, or elsewhere. Beatrice disdained further 
question. 

Dinner was served. They sat at a small table at the 
end of the stately room. A mirror in an old Florentine 
frame faced her. She would have risen to save 
herself from the inexorable reflection, but she dared not. 
Her unbalanced sense saw her image horribly, as that 
of an over-rouged woman with haggard eyes and sunken 
cheeks. 

He said: “Are you really keen on taking up our 
reservations on the Aquitania?” ) 

“Why, yes. Everything’s arranged. Haven’t you 
got to be in New York?” 

“I cabled yesterday for the latest date Styvers 
could give me. Reply this afternoon that they don’t 
need me for another month. That’s their way. ‘They 
like to put the fear of God into you—and when you 
show them that you’re unmoved, they climb down!” 

“So you want to stay here another month?” 

“If you don’t mind,” said he. “Of course there’s 
no reason why you shouldn’t go by the Aquitanta, my 
dear, if it puts out your plans.” 

“Why do you want to stay in Florence?” she asked, 
with a show of casualness. 

“To escape the New York winter as long as possi- 
ble. Brr! You know I’ve never got accustomed to it.” 

She thought for a few racked moments. 

“Very well,” she said with a shrug. ‘‘We can cancel 
the bookings.” 


SILVESTER AND BEATRICE 313 


““You’re perfectly sure you wouldn’t like to go ahead 
of me?” 

“Perfectly sure,” she said. ‘For me, this is my real 
home. It’s poor old Fargus that’ll be upset.” 

“Oh—Fargus!” said Anthony. He added—and her 
jealous ear seemed to catch a note of compunction: 

“You’re a great dear, you know, Beatrice.” 

“T wonder,” she said, “whether you really think so.” 

“Madonna!” he protested. 

But his cry rang untrue. 

The meal over, coffee was served in the octagonal 
salon. She dismissed the servants. As she handed 
him his cup, he rose to take it. She almost wished that 
married life had dulled those little instincts of courtesy. 
If only he could have lain back in his chair and smiled 
up at her and touched her fingers as she served him! 

She said desperately: 

“T wonder how long you are going on loving an old 
woman, Anthony.” 

He replied: “My Madonna has no age. [I'll love 
her till the end of time.” 

She made a pretence of laughter. 

“An Antonio might have said that in an eighteenth- 
century comedy.” 

“Why not,” said he, “if he was sincere?” 

“Ah, but was he?” 

“That,” said he, sipping his coffee, “is known but 
to his God and his dramatist.” 

‘And whether he was real or artificial?” 

He laughed away the words. 

‘Flave no fear, Madonna. I’m real enough.” 

She took up a magazine; he a novel. There was 
silence between them; not, as once, intimate, compan- 
ionable, with now nid then eyes meeting eyes lifted 
from the page, in a mutual smile of understanding; but 


314 PERELLA 


silence cold and hard, only broken for her by the drag- 
ging minutes clicking almost in her brain. Her head 
ached violently; her eyes burned; her limbs were lead. 
Presently, at the end of her strength, she rose. An- 
thony looked up from his book, obviously unaware 
of the torment within her. She threw the magazine 
on the table. 

“I’m going to bed.” 

“Already?” He sprang to his feet. 

“T’m tired,” she said. “I don’t think Florence in 
winter suits me. It gets on my nerves. . . . It’s really 
a place for Latins, not for Anglo-Saxons.” 

‘‘There’s something in that,” said he politely. 

“Besides, I need a change . . . my restless, Ameri- 
can blood. Perhaps, after all, I'll go by the Aquitania 
—especially as it won’t make very much difference 
to you.” 

“My dear Beatrice,” he protested. 

“We'll see.” 

She reached the door which he held open for her. 

“Good night,” she said. 

She passed out. He went a step after her. 

‘“‘What’s the matter, my dear?” 

“I’ve told you. I’m tired,” she replied, on a half 
turn. “I need a change.” Moved by a sudden im- 
pulse, she completed the turn and faced him in the cor- 
ridor, as he stood with his back against the open door. 
“There comes a time in a woman’s life when change is 
inevitable. You’re too young to understand. Good 
night, Anthony.” 

“Good night,” said he. 

She crossed the marble-paved hall, not daring to 
turn again, hoping with a forlorn agony of hope that 
he might stride after her, in his wonderful way, and 
take her in his arms. But she only heard a slow step 


SILVESTER AND BEATRICE 315 


and the clicking of the salon door behind him. It was 
the first night during their married life that they had 
not kissed on parting. He had made no attempt, mur- 
mured no hint, made no gesture, however conventional. 

That click of the door, echoing sharp in the marble 
hall, sounded in her ears like that of doom. It sig- 
nified the end. 

In her room she found the bundle of last post letters 
spread out on her writing-table, with which she had 
been too weary to concern herself before dinner. 
She opened one from Emilia. . . . “The little baronet, 
or, if women had their rights, the little baronetess, 
is still domg well, thank you... !” She threw it 
aside. . . . Yes, later, when the new thing had sprung 
from the thing to which she had given birth, was born, 
the natural woman’s tendrils in her would entwine 
themselves around it. But not now. .. . Instead of 
a comfort, it was a mocking pain... . 

Her eyes wandered gropingly over her own private, 
and almost sacred collection of bedroom books. In 
the depths of her she was a spiritually-minded woman, 
and read many things almost in secrecy. As she 
scanned the backs, the beginning of a paragraph of 
St. Thomas 4 Kempis came hauntingly into her head. 


“Think not thyself totally abandoned, although for a time 
I have sent thee some tribulation, and have even withdrawn 
some cherished consolation. .. .” 


She sought the volume, a beautiful edition bound in 
vellum, and she remembered that, a fortnight or so be- 
fore, she had lent it to Anthony, who had heard 
vaguely of T'he Imitation as a spiritual classic, but had 
never set eyes on it. It was not the kind of volume he 
would take downstairs. ‘Therefore, it must be in his 
bedroom. She craved the book, so that she could con- 
tinue the haunting passage. As the chances of 


316 PERELLA 


Anthony having retired were remote, she turned the 
handle of his door and switched on the lights. The 
room had been prepared; things set in order, the bed- 
clothes turned down. She surveyed, with a pang, a 
husband’s familiar and intimate odds and ends. ‘The 
vellum-bound book she found beneath a pile of French 
and Italian novels. She drew it out, and was about to 
depart when, her sense of smell being acute, she became 
conscious of a perfume, all the more strange because 
Anthony had every healthy man’s loathing of arti- 
ficial scent. 'To please him, she herself used it only 
in the subtlest fashion. But here was frank perfume; 
different from her own, but none the less exquisite. 
She thought she recognized it. Whence could it pro- 
ceed? Almost unawares she traced it to be where the 
gay silk pyjama suit was laid out. From the pocket 
of the jacket she drew a crumpled, mangled, almost still 
moist square of a handkerchief which, when she shook 
it out, disclosed an embroidered “P” in the corner. 
And the scent was somewhat stale. 

He had taken it yesterday to dry Perella’s eyes. 
He had kept it. He had put it in his pyjama pocket 
to keep the tears and perfume of her while he slept. 
She knew there had been no other wrong. And, char- 
acteristically careless, Anthony had let it stay where 
he had put it. . . . But it was youth, youth clinging 
with all its emotional fibres to the tears and perfume 
of youth. She felt a powerlessness that was almost 
strength. She returned the pathetic rag to the py- 
jama pocket, and went back to her room, where she 
had neither the heart nor the faith to open the De 
Imitatione Christi. 7 

Very early next morning Silvester received a mes- 
sage. 


~“T’m in your hands. Ill do whatever you think is right.” 


CHAPTER XX 


AntuHony stretched himself luxuriously, while his 
man drew the heavy curtains and let the pale December 
daylight into the room. He watched the servant with 
the still fresh pride of independence. It was his own 
man, a handy Englishman, who combined the duties 
of valet and chauffeur. In his latter capacity he had 
little to do but keep the two-seater Fiat clean. In 
his leisure he laid out Anthony’s clothes, brushed his 
suits, and treed his shoes. He was a brisk person, 
and the possession of him was an unceasing delight to 
Anthony. 

He laid the breakfast tray on Anthony’s lap as 
he sat up in bed, and a folded pile of newspapers by 
his side. He pick up odds and ends of garments that 
lay about the room. He paused by the door. | 

“I beg pardon, sir, but Mr. Fargus’s compliments, 
and he would be glad to see you as soon as it’s con- 
venient.” 

Anthony poured out his coffee and milk. 

‘Tell him to come along whenever he likes.” 

He unfolded a paper and scanned the news. The 
same old Mussolini jealousies, the same old unintel- 
ligible Reparations question, the same old sanguinary 
drama somewhere or the other. He buttered his roll 
and sipped his coffee. It was a very comfortable world, 
in spite of emotional upheaval. Beatrice’s attitude for 
the last two or three days had disturbed him. She 
had gone about surrounded by a strange atmosphere 
which he could not penetrate. For the last two nights, 
for instance, on parting, she had made it obvious that 
she did not desire his usual kiss. Out of delicacy the 
first night, and perhaps out of pique the second, he 
had held back. Yesterday he had scarcely seen her. 

317 


318 PERELLA 


She had been in Florence all the morning and had 
lunched: out. He had spent most of the afternoon at 
the Anglo-American Club playing bridge, and, on his 
return before dinner, he had found her in the hall say- 
ing good-bye to Silvester, who apparently had dropped 
in for tea. Again she had asked him whether he 
minded her dining alone upstairs. She alleged head- 
ache, fatigue consequent on the winter climate of 
Florence. She had met Cornelius and asked him to 
dine, but now she didn’t feel equal to his oppressive 
optimism. Anthony must make her excuses. Any- 
how, he would have an amiable dinner companion. She 
had gone away with a vague “good night.” 

It was perturbing. He didn’t like the delicate bal- 
ance of their relations to be upset. Analogous incom- 
prehensible moods had often worried him during the 
past two years, and had caused him to grip his head 
in perplexity and wonder what the devil he had done 
to offend. Something trivial in his eyes, but magni- 
fied absurdly in the woman’s, had always been the cause. 
It must be the same now. Conscience suggested jeal- 
ousy of Perella. Reason proclaimed the absurdity of 
such a hypothesis. He had been a model of acute 
discretion. . . . And, as for Perella herself, there was 
but one way out. He had been a fool a couple of 
days ago to plead for an extra-month in Florence. 
His head had been full of her since their meeting 
at Doney’s—an instant’s meeting too casual to be no- 
ticed by the tea-drinking crowd—followed by the walk 
on the Lungarno, and his drive with her in the two- 
seater to the corner of her street. She was the 
valiantest thing on earth; her decision had been as 
irrevocable as the Last Judgment; and there was only 
one way out of the difficulty. He must make things 
up with Beatrice and go with her to America 


SILVESTER AND BEATRICE 319 


on the Aquitania. And he must never come back to 
Florence. It was a dreadful, heart-rending muddle. 
; . . But the bed was warm, the rolls were crisp, the 
coffee was hot, and he had a morning of pleasant 
drawing before him. Mechanically he sought a hand- 
kerchief, and drew from his pocket Perella’s little rag. 
What an idiot he was to have left it there for two or 
three nights. He hoped that Jackson, the brisk man, 
had not noticed it. Then he laughed. Women’s hand- 
kerchiefs must be one to Jackson. Why shouldn’t 
he have one of his wife’s handkerchiefs in his pocket? 
All was well. He kissed the poor little emblem of love 
and misery and put it back. ... Yes. The Acqui- 
tania. His mind was made up. He must play the 
game. It was hell to leave her now that he knew she 
loved him; but it would be worse hell to do otherwise. 
Beatrice, Silvester, Perella herself. . . . No—it was 
one of those things that only cads and devils could do. 
The Aquitania, and the clean cut. 

There was a tap at the door, and, on his response, 
there entered Fargus, small and grey and wizened. 

“You'll be kind enough to excuse me, Mr. Blake, 
for disturbing you,” said he, ‘and perhaps for taking 
a liberty ; but as I’m in a position of trust, I should re- 
gard it as a favour if you told me something about 
Madam’s sudden departure this morning.” 

Anthony stared. “Sudden departure? What do 
you mean?” 

“Dennever went into her room this morning as usual, 
found it empty, the bed not slept m, everything in a 
mess, drawers opened, jewellery gone. She goes down- 
stairs and learns from the under-chauffeur that Madam 
started at half-past six in the big car with Reid, taking 
only a dressing-case with her.” 

Anthony dumped the tray beside him on the 


320 PERELLA 


bed, and swung out from beneath the clothes. 

“Are you mad, Fargus? I don’t understand!” 

“Tt’s so extraordinary that Madam shouldn’t have 
told Dennever to pack her things.” 

“Of course. Of course. Fantastic.” 

‘You know nothing about it, Mr. Blake?” 

“Not a thing.” 

He huddled on his Joseph’s coat of a dressing gown. 

“Let us look into it. It’s absurd.” 

He went out and searched Beatrice’s room. Noth- 
ing there gave a clue to her secret flight. The maid had 
restored confusion to order. ‘There was no trace of 
a message. Nothing. The under-chauffeur had told 
his bald and unsatisfactory story. Later, Dennever 
reported that Madam had taken the set of personal 
cheque-books (Fargus’s despair for many years) from 
her private drawer. This betokened more than a day’s 
excursion. What could it mean? Pending an answer, 
Anthony washed and dressed and waited. 


Perella was awakened much earlier. The servant 
brought in a letter or two. One of them was un- 
stamped and addressed in Silvester’s handwriting. She 
was in the middle of it, and in a state of dire per- 
plexity, when Marietta, the old servant, began to up- 
braid her for letting the latter go without ministra 
tions. . 

““He was called away suddenly,” said Perella. 

“But there was his valise to be packed and carried 
downstairs. I could not have gone long to bed. I 
ought to have been awakened.” 

“We did not like to disturb you,” said Perella gently. 

The old woman went out grumbling. She had been 
in the Commendatore’s service for twenty years, and 
resented this breach of trust. Perella re-read the let- 
ter.’ It ran: 


SILVESTER AND BEATRICE 321 


“My pearest PERELLA, 

“By the time you get this I shall have started on a long 
journey, the reason for which I shall tell you later. I need 
not say more now than that it is urgent, that it has to be 
secret, and that, much as I regret it, I have not seen my way 
to take you into my confidence. I shall be greatly obliged 
if you will carry on here as though nothing has happened 
until you hear from me again, which will be as soon as 
possible. I’ve paid some money into the joint account at 
the Banca d'Italia, which I see was getting somewhat low. 
So you will have plenty, my dear, to go on with. 

“Please keep all correspondence until I let you know where 
to forward it, as my movements may be uncertain. As you 
may imagine, I feel very much averse from leaving you with 
this vague information, but other interests with mine are in- 
volved in this affair. 

“Yours affectionately, 
“SILVESTER.” 


The more she read the cold words in the familiar, 
precise handwriting, the more was she baffled. Only 
twice during their married life had he had occasion 
to write to her; both times in England, once when hos- 
pitable friends of his had insisted on her prolonging 
a week-end visit when business took him up to town 
on the Monday, and once when she spent a couple of 
nights with Caroline, while he was lecturing in Edin- 
burgh. And those letters had been full of his kindness 
and his charm and his pedantic playfulness—as dif- 
ferent from this as a sonnet from a paragraph of news. 
If Marietta felt a sense of grievance, how much more 
did she! Instinct, however, had compelled her to keep 
the truth of her ignorance from the old servant. But 
when could he have started, so that she had heard no 
sound? He had been curiously preoccupied and 
absent-minded at dinner. The article which he had 
undertaken to write for an Art Magazine on Persian 


322 PERELLA 


Seventeenth-Century Painting, nominally a review of 
a French treatise, was growing, he had complained, in 
length and ineptitude. She knew that he took his 
scholarship over seriously. To him, an inaccuracy 
was as grievously terrible as to a surgeon would be a 
slip of his knife into a vital part. But she had never 
known work occasion such depression. ‘The only man 
who knew anything about the subject, he had declared, 
was a Finlander who used to live in Constantinople hbe- 
fore the war. God knew where he was now; perhaps 
back again in his old university of Abo. If time 
wasn’t pressing, it would be almost worth while to seek 
him out either at one place or the other, and look over 
his collection. After dinner he had bidden her a hur- 
ried good night and retired into his sacrosanct library. 

She, innocent yet guilty, her mind distraught with 
thoughts of Anthony, had not resented her husband’s 
nervous apologies for leaving her, and, after an hour 
or two with an absently read book, had gone to bed. 
From his bedroom near by there had come not a sound. 
She had not fallen asleep till late. When could he 
have left the house? | 

She went miserably through the flat. His fur coat 
with its old-fashioned and dilapidated mink collar, 
which he could never be persuaded to replace, and his 
lighter overcoat, were missing from the hall. From 
the box-room she noticed the absence only of his old 
suit-case. The library was in its usual scrupulous 
order. A great mass of ashes of burnt paper, how- 
ever, lay beneath the Renaissance chimney-piece, flecks 
of white showing here and there. She kneeled down 
and looked at them. They were fragments of his 
article on Persian Painting which he had destroyed. 

The mad idea entered her head that he had run off to 
track the Only Authority from Constantinople to Abo. 


SILVESTER AND BEATRICE 323 


She passed the morning desolate. Innocent, yet 
guilty, again she thought of Anthony. But how could 
Anthony have anything to do with this sudden journey 
of Silvester’s? She had been fighting him and her 
heart with all the strength that was in her. Of only 
one indiscretion, remembered with remorseful anguish, 
had she been culpable, when her will was numbed and 
her limbs like water, and her head swam and the blood 
surged up from her heart; and that had been secret from 
all the world. ‘True, she had seen him since then and 
walked with him, so as to insist on the hideous im- 
possibility of their love. She had left the Marchesa’s, 
shown herself at Doney’s, where she had made a trivial 
purchase of sweets, like any woman in Florence, and 
had greeted him as the friend and acquaintance they 
were known to be. ‘They had gone out separately and 
met and walked the dim streets for a while, and he 
had driven her home. Anthony was out of the question. 

The muffled sound of the telephone came to her ears. 
Presently Marietta entered. 

“The chauffeur wants to know if the Commendatore 
wants him this morning. I told him the Commendatore 
had gone on a journey, but I would ask the Signora.” 

Perella put a hand to her bosom for a moment or 
two before replying. So, even Giacomo, the chauffeur, 
did not know of Silvester’s departure. She had taken 
it for granted that Giacomo had driven him to the 
railway-station, and she had intended to ask him dis- 
creet questions. But now the mystery was darker than 
ever. Night cabs are scarce as sunflowers in the neigh- 
bourhood of the Viale Milton. How did Silvester get 
to the station? 

She dismissed Marietta. 

“Tell Giacomo Ill ring up the garage later.” 

She felt incredibly lonely. Her impulse was to put 


324 PERELLA 


on a hat and coat and walk. But it was a day of 
dreary rain. She occupied herself restlessly till lunch, 
a futile break in the monotony, for she could eat 
nothing. At last she determined to put into execu- 
tion a gradually growimg resolve. She would order 
the old car and drive to the Villa Corazza and see 
Beatrice, and tell her the extraordinary news, and 
ask her advice. This she could do in all loyalty, for 
she had definitely finished with Anthony. She was 
fond of Beatrice, admired her for her kindness and 
graciousness and wisdom beyond all women; and 
Beatrice was Silvester’s dearest friend. On a day like 
this she would certainly be at home. ‘The drive, too, 
would be a distraction. She ordered the car. 

She rushed across the pavement through the rain 
into the car, and gave Giacomo the destination. He 
put his head in at the open door, smiling in his Italian 
way. 

‘Marietta tells me that the Commendatore went 
away last night. If only he had told me! What are 
hours to me in the service of the Commendatore and 
the Signora!” 

“He was called away suddenly by a telegram,” said 
Perella. ‘There was just time to telephone to the 
Cercola for them to send up a taxi.” 

It was humiliating to lie, but how much more so to 
let the servants know that she was as ignorant as 
they? 

She felt pathetically small as she jolted along m the 
car, whose rain-splashed windows soon blurred the 
sight of outside things. It was a newly revived sense 
of smallness, for her happy married life had given 
her stature; now she had dwindled again to the drift- 
ing waif of Chelsea, Paris, the Pension Toselli, Venice. 
Physically she realized with a shock, that for protec- 


SILVESTER AND BEATRICE 3825 


tion against the jolts, she must sit forward so that 
her feet could find purchase in the floor of the car, and 
not dangle as they always did when she leaned com- 
fortably right back. 

The car drove up the stately steps of the Villa 
Corazza. She ran quickly under the shelter of the 
glass awning. 

“The Signora ” she began as soon as the door 
opened. 

“The Signora is away from home,” said the foot- 
man. 

“Oh,” said Perella, disappointed. ‘‘Will you tell her 
when she comes in I should like so much to see her?” 
“She has left Florence, Signora,” said the man. 

“When?” 

“This morning, early. She was called away sud- 
denly.” 

The coincidence gave her, at first, the shock of un- 
expected comedy, such as one experiences by casually 
dipping a hand in the tank of an electric eel. 

But the master was there, said the footman. He was 
much perturbed, and doubtless he would like to see the 
Signora; molto turbato. All elements of comedy van- 
ished. Something abnormal had occurred. She must 
see Anthony. He came rushing into the octagonal 
boudoir into which she had been shown. 

*“You’ve come to see Beatrice?” 

“Of course. Who else?” 

“She’s gone. I’m half crazy. I don’t know what it 
means. Started at half-past six this morning in the 
big car, with just a dressing-case, without saying a 
word to anybody. Not even her maid. Where she’s 
gone to, God only knows.” | 

Her dark eyes stared at him out of a white face. 

“But Silvester’s gone too.” | 





326 PERELLA 


The situation was beyond their experience of human 
phenomena. She showed him the letter. 

‘He says nothing in it about coming back,” he re- 
marked. 

“That’s what frightens me,” said Perella. 

That the missing pair had gone off together was 
obvious; but for what purpose was as dark as mid- 
night. It must have been a carefully planned stroke, 
each fulfilling, in identical manner, a compact of 
secrecy. But why? And whither? Silvester’s sim- 
ple needs could be provided indefinitely by the contents 
of a suit-case; but Beatrice, accustomed to travel with 
a mountain of luggage and a retinue of servants, how 
far could a little dressing-case take her? 

They talked, half scared, wandering round and 
round known facts to find some door for conjecture. 
They regarded each other blankly like two young lost 
souls. Perella began to cry. Anthony put his arm 
comfortably around her shoulders. But she shrank 
away and held him off and dried her eyes. Out of 
delicacy he renounced his attempt at consolation. 

“There’s nothing for it but to wait and see what 
happens,” she concluded. “It’s strange that Beatrice 
left no word.” 

“We don’t even know which way they’ve gone,” said 
Anthony for the tenth time. 

“We don’t,” said Perella, helplessly. 

Even her crazy theory of the Constantinople to Abo 
hunt must be dismissed, for Beatrice would not accom- 
pany him on the preposterous Odyssey. 

He rang for tea. It revived a drooping Perella. 
Anthony, declaring the need of sterner restorative, 
drank a brandy and soda. 

Presently the footman entered with a couple of let- 
ters that had come by the afternoon post. One An- 


SILVESTER AND BEATRICE 327 


thony threw aside: the other he tore eagerly open. 

“From Beatrice.” 

“Read it.” 

She gazed at him intently as he read, her heart throb- 
bing; for here most likely was the key to the mystery. 
When he had finished, he handed it to her without a 
word, and, mechanically lighting a cigarette, went and 
stared out of the window on to the dripping terrace and 
the mist-enveloped hills. 

She read: 


“My prar ANTHONY, 

“I’m taking a step which I fear may cause you pain. 
But I’m doing it for what I think the best. Your loyalty 
has never let me perceive in you a recognition of the dis- 
parity of our ages. I, on my part, have tried to keep up 
the fiction of my youth, but the time has come when I can 
do so no longer. It’s not your fault; it’s entirely mine. I 
can’t enter any more into your fresh enthusiasms, and the 
future has frightened me, for I shall be an old and withered 
woman when you're in the very pride of your manhood. So 
I’ve made up my mind, without scenes or painful arguments, 
to go out of your life. I'shall be many miles away when 
you get this. That’s why I shall post it, instead of leaving 
it behind me. 

“You must not think I am doing this unselfishly. Far 
from it. My need of happiness is even greater than ever, 
and I shall find it for certain on the path I have chosen. 
With all these struggles and emotions going on inside me, 
I feel I have drawn myself very far apart from you of late, 
and I fear I’ve not made you very happy. But you must 
not judge me harshly. There are hundreds of people who 
will do that. 

“Please do me a last great favour. Stay on in the villa, 
at any rate until I can give Fargus necessary instructions, 
and until you hear from me again. Also, will you cancel 
the Aquitania bookings. 


328 PERELLA 


“T hate leaving you, but, as I said, my happiness and that 
of others calls me away. 
“Yours affectionately, 
“BEATRICE.” 


Anthony turned and crossed the room, throwing his 
cigarette, on his way, into the fireplace. 

‘What do you think of it?” ; 

She said hesitatingly: ‘There’s only one thing to 
think—I’m sorry, Anthony—it must hurt you dread- 
fully—in spite—well, in spite of what you’ve said about 
me. ‘There’s someone else—she has gone to him.” 

“With him,” said Anthony. 

“What?” 

“Silvester.” 

She sprang to her feet, and held her bosom tragically. 

“No! No! It isn’t possible. He loves me. He 
was happy. I did everything to make him happy. 
Everything he wanted. It’s impossible. . . .” 

She went on declaring her faith. He waited, some- 
what grimly till she ended. 

“How do you account for their going off together?” 

“T don’t know,” she cried. ‘He was her friend. 
Devoted to her. He’s a man that would sacrifice any- 
thing of himself for a friend, as he has done over and 
over again. He’s simply accompanying her, helping 
her, comforting her. . . .” 

“You know him better than I do,” said Anthony. 

“Naturally. A man like that—to a woman who 
loves him, he’s transparent. She can see his heart 
beating. 'That’s why there can be nothing more be- 
tween you and me.” 

After a while he said: ‘“‘Will you let me see your 
letter once more?” | 

She drew it from her bag and handed it to him. He 
glanced it through and gave it back to her. 


SILVESTER AND BEATRICE 329 


“Read it again,” said he. 

“IT know it by heart. Every word bears out what 
I’ve said. The journey is urgent—has to be secret— 
for Beatrice’s sake. ‘Other interests than mine are 
involved’—Beatrice’s interest.” 3 

“Other interests with mine’—if you'll look again. 
The word makes all the difference.” 

“Little words like that make no possible difference,” 
she replied contemptuously. “I hate quibbles.” 

“You’d make a bad lawyer, my dear,” he remarked 
gently. 

“T hope I should,” said Perella. 

He forebore argument. The case against Silvester 
was ridiculously clear. Apart from the damning word, 
the letter did not ring true; it lacked the noble frank- 
ness of Beatrice; it was the letter of an ashamed man. 
He admired, though he deplored, Perella’s loyalty. 
Time, however, would bring disillusion. 

“If you think for a minute,” said Perella, breaking 
a spell of silence, “youll see how impossible it is. 
They’ve known each other for over twenty years. If 
Beatrice wanted to have fallen in love with him she 
could have done it any time—when he was a young 
man.” 

“Let us hope you’re right,” said Anthony. 
“But *? He paused, and looked at her as she stood 
before him in the dainty glamour of her beauty and 
strength— ‘But if you’re wrong a2 

“I’m not.” She held up two protesting hands. 
“So don’t let’s talk of it.” 

“Perhaps,” he admitted, “this is hardly the occasion.” 

“Tt isn’t,” said Perella decisively. 








The dull days passed. Nothing could move her 
faith in Silvester. Nothing could move Anthony’s con- 


330 PERELLA 


victions that if Beatrice’s path to happiness led towards 
a particular man, that man could only be Silvester Gay- 
ton. Yet, was his hypothesis certain? She might be 
bent on any course pathetically desperate. At the 
back of her sweet worldliness and gracious common 
sense ran a streak of mysticism which she kept hidden, 
and betrayed even to him only at rare moments. 
Though nominally Protestant, she loved the incense and 
the bells and the far-off chants and the breathless si- 
lences of the Roman ceremonial. In her room she kept 
a little library of devotional books. Had she not, only 
recently, lent him Thomas 4 Kempis? Why shouldn’t 
her path lead her straight into a convent—the mystical 
religious life which had lured thousands of women far 
less likely devotees than Beatrice? In that case, Sil- 
vester’s quixotic escort could be explained. He com- 
municated this theory to Perella, who grasped it ea- 
gerly. Anthony went about leaden-hearted, like one 
stranded, left out in the cold. ‘The wife to whom he 
was sincerely attached by a thousand ties, a nun in a 
convent! The woman whom he loved and who loved 
him, unshakably loyal to her husband. He stood a 
pitiable figure of a man. 

But if, on the other hand, the obvious theory were 
correct, then was his pride as a husband lacerated, him- 
self subjected to hidden yet intolerable jeers. Yet, in 
that case, the way lay honourably open to Perella. He 
dared not think of it now. To finer feelings it seemed 
an indecency. 

While waiting, they gave out to the world that Sil- 
vester and Beatrice had been summoned to the dymg 
bed of a beloved friend in Paris. Not even to Cornelius 
Adams, whom he met daily at the club where he spent 
much time over the mild bridge table, did he give a hint 
of what really had occurred. 


CHAPTER XXI 


THERE never was such an elopement since the world 
began. It had been plotted in secrecy and accom- 
plished with the impatience of the flight of two young 
lovers. ‘They had decided that drama must be the es- 
sence of the action. For, they argued—and argument 
of some sort was imperative—that if he were to be sum- 
moned on urgent business, say to Milan, one day, and 
she to Paris (where they might meet), on another, 
there must needs be preparations, explanations, 
seeings-off, leave-takings, which would rend their hearts 
beyond human endurance. What had to be done must 
be done with sudden and dreadful finality. 

Of Beatrice’s servants the only one forewarned was 
Reid, the Scotch chauffeur, an unquestioning man in- 
terested in journeys only so far as his car’s efficiency 
was concerned, and, on a hint from Beatrice, silent as 
the apathetic grave. The big car must be ready to 
start at six o’clock on a long day’s journey. He 
touched his cap. It was nobody’s business but his own. 

Not Fargus, not Baratelli, not even Dennever, were 
told. Dennever made the usual preparations for the 
night, was dismissed, and went to bed and placidly to 
sleep. 

In the raw cold of the December dawn, the car drew 
up in the Viale Milton and, swallowing up a wizened, 
fur-coated figure and a suit-case, went on its way. 

‘Plain sailing?” she asked. 

“Yes. Notasound. And you?” 

“Only the under chauffeur who heard Reid in the 
yard and came down to see what was the matter—and 


Reid sent him back to bed.” 
331 


332 PERELLA 


“And your luggage?” 

She pointed to a dressing-case at her feet. That was 
all. She would pick up some things at the flat in 
Paris. 

A fine rain was falling. It was still almost dark and 
miserably cold. Neither had thought of food or hot 
drink before starting. Their way took them along 
wintry countrysides and dreary villages. They 
scarcely spoke, for there was nothing to say. After a 
while they both began to cry, and held each other’s 
hands. 


Their journey was that, from Paradise, of a new 
Adam and a new Eve, who had not even the beautiful 
and newly-found consolation in each other of the First 
Pair blindly groping their way through strange lands, 
bleak and uninspiring, but with the Will-o’-the-Wisp 
of Hope guiding their footsteps. The Gates had 
clanged behind them, and the inexorable clangour rang 
in their ears and deafened them to whatever of music 
the air might hold, and their tears blinded them to any 
glimmer that might betray the beauty of the earth. In 
the great car, with rugs and furs and electric heaters 
for their feet, they were spared the common-place dis- 
comfort of frozen flesh. Vague towns gave them food 
and shelter, saving them from starvation. But their 
hearts were like ice and their souls went a-hungered. 
. . . Beatrice retained few impressions of the endless 
flight into universal desolation beyond that of the gentle 
little man with his white moustache, hard bowler hat, 
and red-rimmed eyes queerly distorted through the 
thick lenses of his pince-nez, fussing round her when 
they halted, nervously eager for her physical well-being. 

Only now and again could they bear reference to that 
which they had left behind them. 


SILVESTER AND BEATRICE 883 


“Are you sure you made it clear?” 

“Quite.” 

“Where did you post your letter?” 

“TI left it in the letter-box.” 

“You should have posted it. It would have given 
us more time. I posted mine on my way to you.” 

“What does it matter? We have gone out into the 
world. The four points of the compass, North, East, 
South and West. How will they know which road 
we’ve taken?” 

“That’s true.” 

And then the dismal silence once more. 


After weary waiting at Milan they found places in 
the express to Paris. Reid, the chauffeur, received or- 
ders to find his way to London with the car as best he 
could. He touched his cap with the vapoury smile of 
the man who thinks in terms of carburetters. 

“Perfectly easy, Madam.” He made a swift mental 
calculation. ‘What time would you lke me to call for 
you on Monday morning?” 

She replied off-hand: 

“Kleven o’clock.” 

“Where?” 

“Claridge’s. If I’m not there I'll leave a message.” 

“Very good, Madam.” 

“Wonderful fellow,” said Silvester as they entered 
the bustling station. “Is he a demi-god? Is it 
the triumph of mind over matter, or matter over 
mind?” 

For the first time she laughed. 

“'There’s a race of men and women who take an in- 
tense pride in being infallible machines. If Reid didn’t 
keep his appointment, his heart would break. I think 
I’m the only human being to whom he’s attached. He 


834 PERELLA 


has been with me for seventeen years, and I’ve never 
heard of any woman anywhere near him.” 

‘“'That’s extraordinary,” said Silvester. “I’m not 
very observant in these things, you know, but only a 
fortnight ago I passed him in the Piazza Santa Maria 
Novella, arm-in-arm with a most attractive girl.” 

Again she laughed. “I’ve never known you talk 
such upsetting scandal before.” 

This was the only gleam of gaiety that shot across 
their drab firmament. By mutual consent they stayed 
recluse on train, in Paris, where they broke their 
journey, and in London. 

She had passed the night in the flat in the Avenue 
Gabriel, of which an old French woman servant was in 
permanent charge, and had slept the sodden sleep of 
misery and fatigue. She had desperately hoped to find 
a telegram from Anthony, sent on chance, when she 
arrived, and she clung to the forlorn hope until it was 
time to start for the mid-day train to London. But no 
message came. She sat in her cabin on the Channel 
crossing, huddling her furs around her in the bitter 
December weather, when the air was nothing but an 
ice-soaked shroud. She felt leadenly alone. For the 
first time in her life she was going beyond reach of tele- 
grams or letters. The Paris flat was the final address 
for anyone’s surmise. The only being who knew her 
projected resting-place in London was Reid, now mak- 
ing his way thitherwards, God knew how. So long as 
his car ran sweetly, Alps and precipices and glaciers 
held no terror for him and to see that his car ran 
smoothly was the reason of his existence. She believed 
in Reid, almost, according to Silvester’s words, as In a 
demi-god. She wished she could meet him at Dover. 
The sight of him would reduce crazy adventure to terms 
of sanity. Of crazy adventure she lacked the thrill. 


SILVESTER AND BEATRICE 335 


Depression weighed her down. She stared at the fu- 
ture across a hopeless waste. Her loneliness was that 
of one drifting on an uncharted Arctic Sea, cut off 
from contact with humanity. 

And she was alone, without a maid. 

In the Pullman from Dover, Silvester ordered tea. 
They sat facing each other across the table. 

“If you feel you can’t stick it,” she said, “let me 
know. I?ll understand.” 

“And you must be equally frank with me. I’m sure 
you will.” 

Later she said: ‘We seem to have been travelling 
for Infinite Time through Infinite Space.” 

He sighed. “It has been a long journey.” 

“And it’ll have to be looked upon as the most ro- 
mantic thing that ever happened.” 

“Perhaps it is, my dear,” said he. “God only 
knows.” 

They stepped out of the train at Victoria into the 
blue glare of an ugly and fantastic glacier cavern peo- 
pled by rushing, hurrying, embracing folk from whom 
she felt poignantly remote. Not a welcoming familiar 
face in the alien mass. The smiling, efficient porter 
who took charge of their luggage was magnified into 
the semblance of a benevolent gnome, belonging to the 
phantasmagorical world into which they, the most mod- 
ern of Adams and Eves, found themselves projected. 
Adam Silvester, by her side, seemed to have shrunk into 
nothingness within his long fur-lined coat with its old- 
fashioned and worn mink collar. 

Their luggage passed through the Customs, the 
efficient porter, as though he were the gate-keeper of a 
New Paradise, sped them off in separate taxis to their, 
lonely destinations. 

In her hotel bedroom the thick Telephone Directory 


336 PERELLA 


lay beside the instrument. She could ring up dozens 
of people in London. A couple of minutes, and then 
the gladness of a friendly voice. But she resisted the — 
sore temptation. Was there one soul who could under- 
stand her incomprehensible elopement? It was better 
to give rest to the weary body and let thought benumb 
itself in the torpor of fatigue. 


Leeds is a great city. It has a Lord Mayor who 
looks after the comfort of nearly half a million citizens. 
It has many noble buildings, which, if washed and put 
out somewhere to air, would command the admiration of 
mankind. But it is given up to the making of material 
things, earthenware and machinery and leather, and 
Heaven knows what utilities; and these things cannot 
be made without factories, and factories must have 
chimneys, and chimneys, in spite of all kinds of legisla- 
tion, must smoke, and smoke must affect stone; so that 
the buildings of the great city are inky black, as though 
they were composed of tired and corroded coal hating 
its second time on earth. It is a great city, but not a 
stately one; for the noble buildings are perforce sepa- 
rated one from the other by unstately gaps. The hali 
a million inhabitants, mostly engaged in the making 
of things, must go backwards and forwards from homes 
to factories; from homes too exiguous for the broader 
joyousness to lurid amusements in dreadful palaces 
whose entrances are vaulted with glaring light. And 
so, to convey this crowded mass of humanity to its 
myriad avocations of work or pleasure, great high- 
decked trams, fantastically illuminated after dark, like 
ocean-liners on rails, clatter and scream endlessly, in- 
distinguishably, remorselessly all day long, and seem- 
ingly all night long, up and down and round about all 
the thoroughfares, broad and narrow, of the great city. 


SILVESTER AND BEATRICE 337 


And it is a city rather of dust-hung mist and rain that 
stains grey than of sunshine. Itis a city of vast power 
and wealth and imperial meaning. Its vicarage is the 
only one in England which is traditionally regarded as 
the last stage before a Bishop’s palace. But there is 
not a member of the Corporation who would not accede 
to the proposition that it cannot provide the environ- 
ment for romantic dalliance. 

And yet, one evening, the revolving-doors of its best 
hotel admitted into a fog-hung hall, a miserably ro- 
mantic pair: a little, near-sighted, elderly man in a 
worn fur coat, and a proud and pale-faced lady, at- 
tended by a red-coated porter with odds and ends of 
luggage. The little man went to the desk and regis- 
tered their names as Mr. and Mrs. Silvester Gayton. 
A clerk unhooked a key, accompanied them to a lift, 
and mounting with them, conducted them through cor- 
ridors and opened the door of a suite of rooms. <A long 
vestibule had a bath-room at the end. A central door 
opened into a cold vault of a sitting-room with bed- 
rooms off, right and left. 

Beatrice drew her furs around her and shivered. 

“Why isn’t there a fire?” 

*T don’t think one could have been ordered, madam,” 
said the clerk. 

“I’m so sorry, my dear,” said Silvester. “I ought 
to have thought of it.” 

“It can be lit at once,” said the clerk, pressing the 
bell for the chambermaid. “And in the bedrooms too, 
if you like.” 

“Yes, of course,” said Beatrice. 

The clerk retired. The red-coated porter distrib- 
uted luggage according to directions and disappeared. 
The chamber-maid entered and concerned herself with 
fires. The two travellers hung about aimlessly in their 


338 PERELLA 


furs, in the ugly, comfortless room. A faint smell per- 
vaded it; it seemed like the smell of raw leather. In 
spite of double windows hidden by heavy curtains, the 
cold air vibrated with the hell-sabbath of shrieking and 
shattering trams outside. Beatrice peeped through 
the murky panes, and found that this suite of honour 
was situfated at a noble architectural corner of the hotel, 
in front of which met all the points of all the trams 
of the restless city. 

She sank on a couch and put her hands to her ears. 

“TI feel mad enough already; but if this goes on I'll 
grow madder. Ill scream and rave.” 

“It’s rather dreadful, I admit,” said Silvester. 

She questioned the kneeling chamber-maid. 

“How long does this noise go on?” 

She gathered that there was a long interval of com- 
parative quiet between two and five. 

*“‘Sleep’s impossible.” 

“T’m afraid so,” said Silvester. 

The fire had been well laid, the chamber-maid was 
skilful, and presently a cheerful blaze warmed the 
chilly room. They cast off their wraps. Beatrice 
threw her hat on a chair. They sat down to warm 
themselves. She broke the silence by a statement of 
the obvious. 

“Well, we’ve burned our boats.” 

““We’ve done what is right,” said Silvester. ‘As the 
Buddhists say, it will be counted to us as merit.” 

“And yet ” She paused, with a sigh. He 
queried. She went on; “and yet it isn’t as though we 
had had our day. We really haven’t. Mine, years 
ago, wasn’t very much of a day, after all. There 
wasn’t much romance about it, was there? You knew 
Frank, perhaps better than I did. And your life 
hasn’t been overcrowded with happiness.” 





SILVESTER AND BEATRICE 339 


“We must look forward,” said he, and repeated: 
“We must look forward,” as though he were pronounc- 
ing a newly discovered verity. ‘Let us hope the fu- 
ture has some happiness in store for us. An Indian 
summer after storms.” 

She acquiesced. “Possibly. At any rate, there'll be 
safety for both of us. That’s to say, if you can trust 
me.” 

““You’re the noblest of women,” he answered in his shy 
manner. “Though perhaps this is not quite the time 
and place for me to say it.” 

She was urged to a laugh which ended on a note 
faintly hysterical. “I should have thought this was 
the very time and place. Thank heaven for a sense of 
humour !” 

She checked herself as she caught the wintry smile on 
his lips. ‘“‘You’re God’s best man, Silvester,” she de- 
clared. “If ever I seem to forget it, you must remem- 
ber that I don’t.” 

He lifted a protesting hand: “Oh, my dear!” 

The trams clattered and shrieked as they turned on 
the points. She rose, restless, and looked around the 
few Leighton reproductions on the walls. He followed 
her. 

**An exquisite colourist with a real vision of beauty ; 
but, after all, a great decorator. These soulless, mono- 
chrome things betray him. A pity.” 

“You knew him?” 

“Yes. When I was a young man. When I wanted 
to be a painter myself. I was at his show—Show Sun- 
day used to be a tremendous function in the studios in 
those days—when this picture was exhibited before be- 
ing sent into the Academy. I thought it the wonder 
of all time.” He turned away. “It seems to be infi- 
nitely long ago.” 


340 PERELLA 


She laid a consoling touch on his shoulder—sheer 
womanly charity: bade her lift him from this slough of 
depression. 

“My dear friend, you’re not as Methusalesque as all 
pane E pee 

“Teighton died in °96. You were eating rice pud- 
ding in the school-room then, with pigtails down your 
back.” 

‘‘And you were a doddering old gentleman of thirty.” 

They returned to the fire. In the unprecedented 
circumstances in which they found themselves, with their 
respective wells of despair for ever rising in their hearts, 
talk, no matter how artificially sprightly, could not be 
other than sporadic. Presently she asked him the time. 
He consulted his watch. 

‘“*A quarter to ten.” 

*“T should have thought, at least, it was past 
midnight. Truly the wages of sin is boredom to 
death.” 

“I’m afraid I’m a dull fellow,” said Silvester. 

“And I’m a hysterical woman, my dear. So we're 
even. If you tried to be brilliant ’d make a scene 
and the hotel people would rush in, and we’d spoil the 
whole thing. You must forgive me.” 

Again she went to the window, drawing the curtain 
aside. 

‘‘Would you care to see the sights of the town?” he 
asked. ‘There’s a certain amount of light and move- 
ment in Briggate—one of the main thoroughfares— 
perhaps rough, but interesting.” 

“Tt’s pouring with rain,” she announced, returning. 
“The fire, at any rate, is cosy. Perhaps I was wrong, 
Silvester, in turning down your proposal of a quiet 
little hotel in the South. I thought we’d be sure to run 
into people we knew, and suggested a Pittsburgh of a 


SILVESTER AND BEATRICE 341 


place like this. You told me it would be noisy, but I 
never dreamed of such a Pandemonium.” 

“Tt7ll be only for one night,” he said apologetically. 

“Yes. But we’ve got to get through it.” She 
smiled so as to redeem the words from querulousness. 
“We can’t talk all the time.” 

“My dear,” said he, “do you remember that years 
ago you and I used to play picquet together?” 

“TY do. A pack of cards would be a godsend. But 
how can we get one?” 

“I always carry about a little Patience set,” said 
Silvester. ‘Often when I can’t sleep—I—well, I find a 
game soothing. I’m afraid they’re rather small—but, 
if you wouldn’t mind a 

“Go and get them for goodness’ sake,” cried Beatrice. 

So the reprehensible pair filled in the long guilty 
hours at the corners of a heavy centre table, with the 
old-fashioned, courtly game. Now and then he rose to 
throw some coal on the fire that warmed them, or to see 
to those in their respective bedrooms. “A point of six. 
A quint toa queen. A major tierce. Point in hearts? 
I have a major quint,” etcetera, etcetera. The hours 
passed somehow. 

Eventually they became conscious of comparative 
peace without. They played the last hand, and reck- 
oned up the score. Beatrice had lost ten shillings; and, 
fumbling in her bag, she handed him the note. Sul- 
vester packed the cards in their leather wallet, and, 
crumpling up the scoring paper, threw it on the floor. 
Beatrice picked it up. He sprang forward. 

“My dear, why bother?” said he. 

She put it into the fire. 

“Tt might be used against us in our trial,” she said. 

He took off his pince-nez and rubbed his eyes with his 
fingers. 





342 PERELLA 


“Yes. Yes. I see,” said he. 

She laughed. She couldn’t help it. The dear man 
stood before her so helpless, so guileless, just as though 
a puckish imp had set him down on some stage in the 
middle of a dramatic scene to play a part of which he 
knew not one line. Of such ludicrous situations woman 
is always the mistress. Raillery was her defence 
against the tragic or the insane. 

“The worst is yet to come. We breakfast here— 
English breakfast—in garments of unquestionable in- 
timacy. Can you face it? I’ve quite a pretty kimono 
—a real one.” 

She grasped the handle of her bedroom door; then 
let go and threw her arms around him and kissed him 
on the cheek. 

“My dear, don’t be too unhappy. We'll see this — 
thing through together. TI’ll not fail you.” 

He wrung her hand and kissed it. 

“You’re splendid, Beatrice. You give me courage. 
I never told you—but God knows I need it.” He 
opened her door. “Good night, my dear, and God bless 
you.” 

The door closed behind her and all the agony that 
he knew she had kept hidden in her brave heart. His 
pain too was great, and he knew that, yet awhile, he 
could not sleep. He made up the fire, sought a book 
from his room, and read for a while unintelligently. 
Then he spread his two packs out in a complicated 
Patience. After an hour or two it came out—the game 
that only came out once in fifty times. It were folly to 
try it again. He resumed his book in a comfortable 
arm-chair before a replenished fire. 

The chamber-maid, entering the sitting-room in the 
early morning, found him fast asleep, his old-fashioned 
tweed jacket buttoned up to his collar. 


PART VII 
THE FOUR 


CHAPTER XXII 


Two depressed pariahs went back to London and 
parted at Euston. Never had apology been so pite- 
ously unromantic as that of Silvester for falling asleep 
before the fire, and thus rendering nugatory the pro- 
jected breakfast scheme. She had forgiven him be- 
cause they had a common woe and she had the kindest 
of hearts. 

They met by appointment at a lawyer’s, an urbane, 
silver-haired gentleman, a specialist in matrimonial 
afflictions, who listened to their artless talk and in- 
structed them as to the conventional procedure. He 
conveyed to them the impression that the course of ac- 
tion on which they had entered was the most common- 
place thing in the world. 

“We might just as well have been consulting an 
architect about alterations to a house,” said Beatrice. 

‘“Ffe would have shown some enthusiasm,” replied 
Silvester. “Say, rather, a consultant physician.” 

“He would have been depressing. Our friend was 
merely bland,” said Beatrice. 

After this they fell into the habit of passing much 
time together, chiefly through Silvester’s timid shrink- 
ing from his kind. Already he seemed to bear upon his 
brow the brand of dreadful notoriety which would be 
obvious to every Bishop in the beloved Atheneum, 
wherein consorted most of his congenial acquaintance. 
Even should he put on a bold front, thereby disguising 
the mark, he had the sensitive fear of claiming their 


esteem under false pretences. Once, while on his way 
343 


344 PERELLA 


to his bank in Pall Mall, he stood for an instant, dis- 
consolate Peri at the gate of that portentous Paradise, 
tempted to enter; but only for an instant. In order to 
resist the temptation he made a fair bolt of it towards 
St. James’s Street. For a home he took refuge in the 
Burlington Fine Arts Club, which, as all the world 
knows, is as interesting as a museum and about as 
merry. Beatrice, with a woman’s greater courage and 
less scruple, would have made her presence known to 
many of her friends. Indeed, to some she did. But 
pity made the lorn Silvester her main concern; him and 
some clothes to supplement the contents of the Paris 
trunk. ‘Together they visited the Tower of London, 
Windsor Castle, the British Museum of Natural His- 
tory, and a fashionable dressmaker in Hanover Square, 
whose denizens he viewed with alarm and embarrass- 
ment. 

Eventually she took him off to a caravanserai in 
Brighton, whence had come rumours of sunshine. 
There they stayed under their own names, deeming that 
the nightmare of Leeds did not need repetition. Reid, 
who, imperturbable, had reported himself at the ap- 
pointed hour, took them down in the car. 

“All erring couples go at least once, in their career 
of guilt, to Brighton—or so I’ve heard—so why not 
wer” 

That had been her argument, not devoid of satirical 
humour. Also, she felt that the vulgar would bring 
them more comfort than the exotic. And she set her- 
self out to comfort him, locking up her own pain and 
misery tight in her heart. They sat together in the 
vast Moorish lounge and discovered an entirely new 
zoological interest in their fellow-creatures. They 
walked along the Parade in the pale sunshine, and, on 
the Pier found, to their surprise, stimulus to wearied 


THE FOUR 345 


nerves in the stiff, salt wind. She opened her lungs 
to the blessing of it. Sternly she drove from her mem- 
ory her tempest-swept cliff at Dinard. She turned to 
her companion. His eyes watered beneath the thick 
glasses; but there was a spot of colour in his cheeks. 
He professed enjoyable invigoration. 

Unconsciously he yielded to the charm of encourage- 
ment. They fell into the pleasant paths of talk in 
which they had found companionship of twenty years. 
Although it was he who, in his sad and reasoned Quixot- 
ism, had counselled their unparalleled adventure, it 
was she who strove to mitigate its torment. It was she 
who lightened for him the burden of the yoke of Flor- 
ence. 

For, before this sardonically tender jaunt into 
Bathos, they had burned their boats finally behind 
them. The letters suggested and supervised by the 
eminent specialist had been written. The Dark Pow- 
ers of the Leeds hotel had been invoked, and the dam- 
ning document of the Hotel Bill had been declared 
existent. The past was no longer their concern. ‘The 
future was more or less blank. But in the present there 
were to be found elements of peace and consolation. 
Thus, for them both, each dawn grew less haggard. 
And Beatrice, looking each morning into an anxious 
glass saw comfortingly in her face the reflection of the 
dawn. Her beauty lingered. There was not yet a 
white hair in the rich and noble brown, and, to her 
challenging scrutiny, the deep blue of her eyes had not 
faded. 

What there were of clouds passed from the sky; the 
sun shone; the wind dropped. There came a halcyon 
day or two. Once, Silvester, moved to self-expression, 
murmured a quotation from Milton about birds of calm 
sitting brooding on the charméd wave. She took his 


346 PERELLA 


arm and walked close to him. Incredible derelicts in 
the seething ocean of mankind, they felt very near to 
each other. ‘They found a couple of chairs on the 
Parade. Brighton’s unique procession of flashing Jew 
and gaudy Gentile passed them by, set apart by their 
respective traditions from its immanence, as from a 
pageant in Mars. They exchanged a smile significant 
of the mild rapture of their isolation. 

A thought exploded suddenly in her head like a 
comical bomb. For all their torture of discussion, their 
future relations had never been explicitly determined. 
She took his hand, clad as always in the grey suéde 
glove. 

“My dear,” she said, “when all this terrible trouble 
is over, do you think you can find it in your heart to 
make an honest woman of me?” 

And, at his dear and protesting agitation of assent, 
she laughed out of the fulness of her generosity. 


The thunderbolt of the impossible fell upon Perella 
and Anthony, shattering the fabric of existence about 
their young ears. For Anthony the grotesqueness of 
an hypothesis lost itself in the cold damnability of a 
fact. Perella at first was stunned, and then, like one 
who, recovering consciousness from a physical blow, 
seeks to realize the objects in a familiar room, groped 
dazedly towards a sense of human values. 

The documents, the handwritings, the signatures, 
were incapable of misinterpretation. Each was in- 
vited, should either deem it desirable to take necesssary 
action, to put lawyers into communication with Sir 
Edward Lovell (name of terrific import!) in whose pos- 
session lay the convincing evidence, the scrap of paper 
from the Leeds Hotel. | 

The letters were kind, strangely formal. It was An- 


THE FOUR O47 


thony, with his man of the world’s general knowledge, 
who perceived the lawyer’s drafting or revising hand. 
Each guilty party confessed to the mistake of marriage, 
to the concealed unhappiness of the past two years, to 
the revival of an old affection which had become too 
strong to resist, and offered the legal partner the way 
of freedom. 

Fargus, apprised in confidence of the possible di- 
vorce, received instructions to shut up the Villa Corazza 
as soon as Mr. Blake should have departed, and to send 
Dennever on a fixed day with Mrs. Blake’s luggage to 
the Duchesse de Montfaucon’s country house at Esher, 
in Surrey, where she would spend the approaching 
Christmas. The firm of Bellingham and Browne, Sil- 
vester’s old solicitors, wrote Perella a scarcely compre- 
hended letter to the effect that they were instructed to 
make certain financial arrangements to supplement the 
securities which lay at her bank, settled on her on their 
marriage by her husband. 

Yet, even in front of this livid evidence, the central 
fact remained almost incredible. 

The letters gave at last an address for Silvester—a 
hotel in De Vere Gardens. A foolish, anxious letter 
which she had sent to the Atheneum had been re- 
addressed to Florence by the hall-porter. Their one 
certainty, therefore, had been that Silvester was not 
in England. 

And now the letter-heading of this modest little hotel 
in Kensington. Perella, although Silvester gave her 
no hint of his requirements, spent a tearful day in 
going through his clothes, packing them and dispatch- 
ing them to England. From the library she had 
chosen certain odds and ends of which he was fond, and 
which had always accompanied him on his travels. 
During her search for these, she found at the end of a 


348 PERELLA 


long bureau drawer something soft, wrapped up in 
tissue paper. Opening it she found an old glove, the 
glove on which she had sewn the button in Venice. She 
threw it into the trunk. 


“Tt’s no use saying it’s incredible, Perella mia,” said 
Anthony, “because it isn’t. The facts are blatant.” 

And Perella had to suppose they were. 

To stay longer in Florence than necessary was out of 
the question. ‘They must go to London, consult law- 
yers, see what could be done. Christmastide was near- 
ing with all its upset of stern affairs. They must reach 
London before Christmas. Once more she was over- 
whelmed by the old sense of drifting loneliness. Save 
Silvester’s friends, Dr. Edwardes, Haddo Thwaites, 
and so on, from whom she could not ask hospitality, 
there was no one in the length and breadth of the land 
that would take her in; no one but Caroline. 

“But we can go to my sister, Gloria,” said Anthony. 
*““She’s a dear. She’ll take us in and mother us in the 
nest of a British Major-General’s respectability. ‘The 
King’s Proctor will slink away from her threshold like 
a baffled hyena.” 

They were in her Viale Milton studio. ‘The curtains 
were drawn. Opposite the high divan on which they 
sat stood the easel still bearing the great canvas with its 
left-handed charcoal experiment, interrupted when 
Silvester had bidden her go to the Marchesa della 
Torre, and since then untouched. She laughed, sur- 
rendering to the spell of the old Anthony. He would 
have put his arm around her, but she drew away, re- 
sisting a temptation to lay her head on his shoulder. 
She was very tired, needed sleep, and her heart was 
torn in twain. She murmured: 

“Must we do it, Anthony?” 


THE FOUR 349 


“What else can we do? They need their freedom, 
and, God knows, we want ours. This time next year 
it7ll all seem like a crazy dream.” 

She sighed. “I couldn’t bear to think I was hurt- 
ing him.” 

“But it’s he who, as far as he’s concerned, is delib- 
erately hurting you.” 

She sat up. “That’s what I can’t understand. He 
is so kind, so—so almost inhumanly kind.” 

“For the matter of that,” said he, “‘so is Beatrice. 
Save the star of my life, she’s the noblest woman I’ve 
known or hoped to know. But—there’s the devil of a 
‘but’—there are these, as I’ve said, blatant facts.” 

“Oh, I’m so tired, dear,” she said, leaning back 
against the Oeshionis: Then she suiiepcred “Don’t 
talk for a little; just let me feel I’m not alone.” 

She found, for the moment, deep rest in his presence 
and in the eencth of his handclasp; the revival of a 
celestial felicity of years ago, when her head had lain 
near his heart. And the sense of mad guilt that had 
rendered so poignant their one passionate kiss in the 
blood-red sunset no longer racked her delicate fibres. 
She was there, in the haven of God knows how many 
dreams, safe at last. Her fingers crept to the muscles 
of his arm. She looked up and beheld the smiling 
tenderness of his young eyes. ‘Their lips met. 

“Now, Perella mia, you are really, wholly and abso- 
lutely mine,” he laughed after a while. “And, for 
your good, you’re going to do exactly what I tell you.” 

She faced him, fascinatingly rebellious. 

*T’ll do whatever my heart tells me.” 

“But your heart’s mine.” 

“No, no,” she said. ‘That’s where you make a mis- 
take. I am yours now, perhaps—lI don’t know; but 
my heart’s my own.” 


350 PERELLA 


“A pretty question of casuistry,” said he. 

It was their first hour of reaction from abominable 
strain. ‘The wonder of love in his eyes was a fascina- 
tion. Even while some obstinate cell in her brain in- 
sisted on opposition, she longed for the moment when 
once more she should lose herself in his embrace. She 
drew quickly away from danger. 7 

“You to Gloria. Ito Caroline. We'll meet as often 
as you like. Battersea and Wimbledon. They’re 
practically next door.” 

She prevailed. They sat down by her writing table 
and drafted telegrams. 


The night before they were to start for England, she 
‘moved about the sweet bedroom that had been hers 
since the day when, with maimed body and cemented 
arm, she had lain upon the bed. She had loved the 
room, and the love that had gone to the making of it, 
with a passion of gratitude. It was only when she had 
recovered from the internal lesions and had been con- 
ducted on her first halting tour through the flat, that 
she realized that Silvester had given up to her his own 
spacious room, and had contented himself with a small 
guest’s chamber near his library. The reconstruction 
on his taking over the other flat on the same floor, had 
afforded him a room equally beautiful when they had 
returned from their long honeymoon journey. But this 
room, in its simple and exquisite beauty, had been hers 
and theirs from the first. And she knew that, for her 
delectation during her illness, he had caused it to be 
hung with the most restful of his Primitives, and 
adorned with old reliquaries and crosses that should 
give tranquillity to her eyes. The blue-hooded Ma- 
donnas with their heads aslant and their calm brows and 
their passionless hands holding the Child passionlessly 


THE FOUR 351 


conceived, and the haloed, nut-brown and wrinkled 
saints either cross-armed or stretching out oblatory 
hands, had for three long years filled her being with 
the grandeur and beauty of their message, elusive, yet 
as strong and eternal as music. 

She was but a tiny, green-water clad thing as she 
wandered about the charmed room. ‘There her girl- 
hood lay buried like a sweet phantom in the comforting 
ambience. There had her womanhood begun, and had 
continued untroubled, guarded from harm by those im- 
mortal serenities. 

Only once, but a short while ago, had she desecrated 
it with the shedding of guilty tears. 

And now, some strange destiny that, since her 
birth, had seemed to scatter her, a fallen leaf, about the 
world, was sweeping her away from this shrine of 
peace and spiritual direction. 

She could not sleep. She went out and made a pil- 
grimage through the dear, bleak rooms of a _ half- 
awakened married life. ‘To-morrow, after she had 
gone, Marietta would cover everything, hang sheets be- 
fore the book-cases. It would be a corpse of a house in 
its white shroud. Her tour oppressed her with the 
sense of a dying grace that to-morrow would be dead. 

The sight of Anthony at the station the next day 
gave her the sudden joy of one who had emerged from 
the valley of the shadow into fields of spring. She met 
his gay smile, his clasp of hands, the love in his eyes, 
and his tender salutation with a gush of reaction that 
caused her to halt for a moment and lay hand on a 
throbbing bosom. ‘The past was past, on both sides. 
The future, such as she had dreamed of it in the Pen- 
sion Toselli, was almost to become true. He took pos- 
session of her in his old masterful way, ordered porters, 
relieved her of all the little responsibilities of travel. 


352 PERELIA 


She was a princess, he her humble courier to command. 
Although she surrendered, she could not repress the 
smile of an irony that had never tinged her thoughts of 
him in the old days of glamour. Then he was a direct- 
ing god. Now he had lost Olympian status, and be- 
came merely the Anthony that she could not choos but 
love. 

While the great international train took them Shae 
wards, they had many talks, some lover-like, some seri- 
ous. She reflected that they were three years older 
than when they first met. She was now twenty-six. 
As a married woman it seemed a staid and matronly 
age, at which she could regard the world with an eye of 
mature wisdom. When she offered him the harvest of 
these reflections he laughed as (she felt) only Anthony 
could laugh, and she laughed too, responsive to his 
mood. He planned out their lives when they should be 
free to marry. New York must be their head-quarters 
for financial reasons; but every year there would be the 
chance of Europe. No longer were they airy castles 
which he had to offer, but solid habitations. A pea- 
cock could be a commonplace reality instead of a fan- 
tastic dream. 

“YT don’t think I should want a real peacock,” said — 
Perella. ‘Let us go one better and set our hearts on 
a phoenix.” 

“Belovédest,” said he, “isn’t it already shimmering 
young and flame-like before us?” 

So she gave herself up to present happiness. The 
long, long journey passed through its stages more 
quickly than ever she thought journey could pass, for 
Anthony was always there, the perfect lover. 


It was strange to wake up, after the heavy sleep of 


THE FOUR 353 


fatigue, in her own little back bedroom in the Batter- 
sea flat. When she had spent the couple of nights 
there during her honeymoon travels, it seemed to have 
grown queerly small. Now, accustomed to the airy 
spaciousness of her Florentine room, she found it ab- 
surdly diminutive, the nest of a sparrow. Yet, faith- 
ful to promise, Caroline had preserved it as a nest of 
fresh daintiness. 'The neat maid came in, lit a fire 
in the tiny grate, and drew the curtains. Perella snug- 
gled under the bedclothes, for the radiation from 
frosted window cast a sudden chill on the air. She 
looked around her and felt as though she could stretch 
out a hand and touch the opposite wall. Once, long 
ago, she seemed to be an inconsiderable speck in the 
room. Why the change? Had she grown in physical 
bulk, or had her series of values changed from the far- 
off days? , 

Caroline herself brought in the breakfast-tray, trim, 
pleasant-faced, affectionate. Perella rallied her on the 
elegance of the kimono she wore. Said Caroline: 

‘When a woman living alone lets herself go to pieces, 
that’s the end of her. <A sloven indoors is a sloven out 
of doors. ‘This means efficiency over the way”—she 
waved a hand towards the tea-shop across the river. 
“Besides, I love clean, beautiful things.” 

She laughed, sat companionably on the end of the 
bed. 'The night before, a weary Perella had sketched 
the amazing situation in which she found herself. 
Now, in the morning, Caroline hungered for detail. 
Her ultimate verdict was that Beatrice was a designing 
woman, and that Professor Gayton had been caught in 
a trap. 

“J shall never believe that perfect dear left you of 
his own free will and accord,” she said. 


354 PERELLA 


“But why should she design?” Perella contended. 
“With her wealth she can command the earth, and, as 
for men ie 

“My dear,” Caroline interrupted, “I’d sooner trust a 
thousand men than one woman.” 

On the other hand she was vastly interested in the 
romance of Perella and Anthony. ; 

“After all, my dear, each generation has its own way 
of thinking and feeling too. Eighty and eighteen can 
never meet on equal terms. When I’m eighty Ill want 
a nice old crock of the same age to talk to. You and 
your Anthony seem matched in Heaven. Am I going 
to see him?” 

As he had arranged to call for Perella at half-past 
twelve, Caroline shirked her duties across the river 
until he came. He came, saw, and conquered. Caro- 
line followed Perella into her room, whither she went to 
put on her hat, and avowed subjugation. She clasped 
the fortunate girl to her bosom, and shed the kind tears 
of sympathy. 

Anthony carried Perella off to lunch at the Carlton.. 
They mustn’t do it very often, said he, for King’s Proc- 
tors lurked under every restaurant table. But for the 
present they could go hang. He was in happy mood. 
Gloria was the dearest thing on earth. So was Frank, 
her husband. Never had family Prodigal such a re- 
turn. Gloria almost rent her hair because he preferred 
coffee to champagne for breakfast. She was counting 
the hours until she could meet Perella. He was the 
bearer of a note. . . . The taxi drive through London — 
stimulated his gaiety. He counted up the years of his 
exile. He sniffed the pavements through the cab win- 
dows as though they had been flowerbeds of summer, 
They must have their fling, he declared; feed their hun- 
gering souls, dance at night, as his elfin Perella had 





THE FOUR 355 


never danced before—Gloria was going to see to that— 
in a word, squeeze London dry. He praised Caroline. 
A dear. If he had a bit of a heart to spare he had lost 
it to her. Perella must convey the message. 

There was quickening frost in the air. The 
thronged streets were dry. There was some kind of a 
sunshine. ‘The Great Shops disgorged their throngs of 
happy people with Christmas parcels in their hands. 
Piccadilly sparkled. Women’s cheeks were whipped 
into rose. ‘The born Londoner in Perella responded to 
the environment, responded more to the Londoner in 
Anthony. The blood danced through her veins. 

He pressed her hand. 

“Happy, belovédest?” 

“It’s Fairy-land,” said Perella. 

They lunched magnificently in the great red- 
upholstered room. To him it was a vital part of his 
old London; to her it was filled with the glamour of a 
new London; of which she had had but dizzying 
glimpses three years ago. It was full. Gaiety and 
beauty and happiness seemed to reign, invisible deities 
in the air. She said, like a child: 

“What a lot of lovely people there are in the world.” 

He laughed. “What would you say if I stuck you in 
a little octagonal cylinder of mirrors?” 

“T should invite you inside with me,” said Perella. 

Presently his quick eye, eagerly roving for English 
faces after exile, fixed on a man with bushy white hair 
and keen dark eyes. 

“By Jove,” said he. “There’s Armstrong. Halli- 
day Armstrong, you know; the architect, my old boss. 
I'd love to have a word with him.” 

“T met him at a party Haddo Thwaites gave,” said 
Perella. 

“Then perhaps I’d better not,” said Anthony. 


356 PERELLA 


““He’s the world’s arch-questioner. Never mind, I'll 
look the old boy up, some time.” 

He dismissed Halliday Armstrong from the sphere 
of his sensations, and talked gaily. For Perella the 
sudden association had broken a thread of the charm. 

She forgot the sinking of the heart a bit later, when 
he drove her down to Wimbledon to have tea with 
Gloria, shy and nervous, but taking pleasant refuge in 
the consciousness of his protection. At the first greet- 
ing her trepidation was conjured away. It was an- 
other Anthony who came forward in the pretty, dim-ht 
drawing-room, with the same spontaneous gesture of 
out-stretched hands, the same intonation of voice, the 
same irresponsible assurance. She was many years 
older than he—in her early forties, but she looked 
amazingly young. She led her to a comfortable chair 
by the fire, gave her tea, showed her quick little cour- 
tesies. Just like Anthony. 

“My husband’s so sorry not to meet you to-day. 
He’s at a Committee Meeting of his Golf Club. It 
seems that some members have been eating their fish 
with niblicks, and the Committee are determined to put 
a stop to it.” 

She helped her off with her coat, and sat on the 
fender stool by her feet and fed her with scones. She 
had Anthony’s gift of instant establishment of personal 
relations. Perella passed a happy hour in an atmo- 
sphere all sympathy. Before her departure, Gloria 
drew her aside. 

“My dear, do you think you could make a friend of 
me: ??? 

“¥ couldn’t help it,” said Perella, smiling. “You re 
so like Anthony.” 

“Then we’ll swear a little compeee te 

Perella yielded to inviting arms and kissed her. 


THE FOUR 357 


She went to bed happy that night in the comforting 
assurance of the love of two women, Gloria and Caroline. © 
There was a yawning gap of many months before her 
during which she must be once more a waif with a 
dropped wrist, unfitted for any reasonable avocation. 
She could not even hand trays in Caroline’s tea-shop. 
Not that she would be put to desperate straits to earn 
her livelihood. But there would be the loneliness of 
waiting with no interest wherewith to fill her days. 
She had great trust in Gloria. 

The next day brought the pain of hateful doing. 
Anthony called for her by appointment. 

“Couldn’t we put it off for a little?” she asked. 

“I wish we could. But my time in England is short. 
Besides, dear, I’ve made the appointment with the law- 
yers.” 

“It seems to make your going so much nearer, and the 
long spell when I'll be all alone. You don’t know how 
I dread it.” 

He comforted her. “Ill see what has to be done on 
the spot there. A lot, I know, could be done just as 
well in Timbuctoo. Only this morning there came in 
an English short-story—a couple of London drawings 
. .. Ll see Stryver. He’s a good fellow. Very pos- 
sibly he’ll let me come back in a month or two.” 

She braced herself up and dabbed a powder puff on 
her face in front of the drawing-room looking-glass. 

“Well, let us go and get the hideous business over.” 

In the taxi he said: ‘‘When the way to happiness, 
Perella mia, is paved with roses, what’s Happiness it- 
self paved with? It’s much better to get to it through 
dreadful swamps beset with dragons.” 

They had to wait some time in a shabby anteroom, 
characterized by nothing but a note of hopefulness. 
Even the grimmest dentist cheers you while you await 


358 PERELLA 


his pleasure with tattered copies of last year’s Punch 
and old catalogues of the Army and Navy Stores. But 
a lawyer’s waiting-room is devoid of these amenities. 
There are straight-backed chairs against the wall, on 
which you sit and look at a long, dusty library table in 
the middle. 

When the door opened and they were shown into the 
presence of the brisk solicitor, Perella’s courage oozed 
out of her finger-tips. In the great arm-chair where 
she sat, she shrivelled into physical nothingness; was 
conscious of being only a small pain in a big room. 
Anthony laid their case before the lawyer who, leaning 
back in a swivel-chair, with finger-tips joined, now and 
again asked searching questions. She replied as best 
she could. ; 

“It’s a pity, a pity,” he said. ‘I’ve met Mrs. Blake, 
when she was Mrs. Ellison, and of course I know Pro- 
fessor Gayton by repute.” 

He again scanned the letters which Anthony had 
brought. 

“There seems to be nothing else to do. It will be 
quite simple. I'll get into touch with Lovell’s and let 
you know. J’ll make an appointment.” 

“Must I come again?” asked Perella. | 

“Y’m afraid so, my dear Mrs. Gayton. You see, 
you’re bringing two separate and really disconnected 
actions. I shall be happy to see you by yourself if you 
prefer it.” 

“Oh, no!” said Perella. 

“In the meanwhile, Mr. Blake,” said the brisk man 
with an engaging smile, “do you think you could send 
me a cheque for a hundred pounds on account of both 
sets of fees.” 

“Certainly,” said Anthony. 

On their way back to Battersea, she suddenly cried: 


THE FOUR 359 


“Oh, I feel as if I had been dragged through mud. 
The details, the horrible technical words, the money. 
... And to have to go through it over and over 
Aga. a.” 

He took her hands very tenderly. 

“What did I say about swamps and dragons? It’s 
only a matter of courage and faith. At the end there’s 
our life—our lifetime, dear—together.” 

He kissed her. She crumpled, helpless. Southern 
blood ran through her veins, and his kisses made it run 
quick to fainting-point. 

“If you'll always love me, Anthony—I’ve no one in 
the world but you.” 

What could lover do more than reassure her in the 
only way that lovers have found since love began? 

Her life for the next few days escaped her powers of 
analysis; being alternatively darkened by pain and il- 
luminated by elusive ecstasy. The enigma of Silvester 
shrouding her mind was cleared only by the joyousness 
of a real Anthony. Her friends did their best to in- 
duce forgetfulness of the past. Caroline, now a woman 
of substance, lavished on her a great-hearted woman’s 
affection. Gloria, adopting her as sister, took her to 
dinners and theatres, and the Embassy and various 
haunts of jollity, where she met bright, careless folk, 
blissfully ignorant of the existence of such beings as 
Professors of the Fine Arts. Her unusual elfin beauty 
commanded success. Her youth responded. Also, 
was not Anthony always there? Dancing with him was 
a dream of strange restfulness. 

Christmas arrangements were made. Caroline and 
her partner, Miss Pritchard, for the past two years had 
given a private mid-day revel at the tea-shop, to which 
they invited some of their artist customers stranded in 
Chelsea over the gay season. It was a Christmas Din- 


360 PERELLA 


ner in fact, with champagne and pelting balls and false 
noses and dancing, and all the fun of the fair. ‘To this 
mild orgy were Anthony and Perella invited. In the 
evening they must dine with Gloria. The General, 
whose character many years of married life had devel- 
oped, took the world humorously, and embraced Pe- 
rella in his purview. The children, a boy and a girl, 
aged eight and nine respectively, were to join the party. 
To Perella, who had never known a child in her life, 
they burst like the new planet did upon the ken of the 
watcher in the poem; they were a breathless discovery ; 
she had fallen into an instant adoration of them. They 
shone in her thoughts like the stars of the Christmas 
night. 

When Anthony announced the receipt of a communi- 
cation from the lawyers suggesting an appointment for 
the 28th, she agreed with impatience. 

“But let us put it out of our heads over Christmas- 
time. Do you know I’ve never had a real Christmas— 
with children—in my life?” 

She had come home drunken from the new debauch 
of buying toys in Harrod’s stores. She claimed her 
unclouded hour. 

Yet, on the morning of Christmas Eve, an indignant 
Anthony burst into the Battersea flat. 

“What have you been doing to that foul beast, Pa- 
nini?” 

She stared. “What do you mean, Anthony?” 

‘““He’s got his knife into the whole lot of us.” 

She grew suddenly pale. “Yes, there was something 
I didn’t tell you. It seemed better not, as we were leay- 
ing so soon. It was after—after they went away. I 
was at the Marchesa della Torre’s, and Prince Panini 
turned up. When I was going, he rose to go, too. I 
couldn’t help it. Giacomo was at the door with the car. 


THE FOUR 361 


It was pelting with rain. He asked me to give him a 
lift as far as the Club. I couldn’t refuse. In the car 
he tried to make love to me. He tried to kiss me. I 
knocked on the window and Giacomo stopped and 
opened the door, and I turned Panini out into the rain. 
What else could I do?” 

*“Nothing—except kill the swine, and you had noth- 
ing to do it with. But he’s out for his revenge in his 
damned Italian way. This is what I get from Corne- 
lius this morning.” 

He handed her a letter. 

“T think I ought to warn you, my dear fellow,” wrote 
Cornelius, “that the unspeakable Panini is giving a 
spice to the inevitable comment on the exodus of two 
households from Florence. His story which he told in 
the Folcis’ drawing-room, and afterwards at the Club, 
is this. That at the Flemings’ party to Ambassador 
Hicks, he turned a corner of the garden, and at the end 
of a long walk he saw Perella and yourself in the little 
temple—in—well—TI can’t hurt you by repeating what 
the beast said. Anyhow, he went on to describe how 
he, model of discretion, vanished from the corner. 
Then, meeting Silvester and Beatrice on the terrace 
who were looking for you, he had suavely sent them 
where you could be found. He regarded it as a great 
scherzo. The Italian company seems to have agreed 
with him. But when he tried it at the Club, Colonel 
Wheeler called him a bloody cad, and threatened to 
wring his bloody neck, and there was the roughest house 
in Florence. But the slander has spread. Now, as 
you know how I love the whole four of you, do put me 
wise, so that I can fight your battles. . . .” 

Perella sank white and shaken on a chair. 

“They saw us. ‘They must have done.” 

“Of course. But can you imagine such a swine?” 


362 PERELLA 


She waved Panini aside. ‘“He’s of no account.” 

He stood checked. ‘How, of no account? First, 
he does what he thinks funny because neither of us was 
particularly polite to him that day; and then, because 
you showed him what you thought of him, he gets even 
with you in spreading this slander. By God! I wish 
I were m Florence!” 

“But, my dear,” she cried, “what does Panini mat- 
ter? There’s only one thing that matters. ‘They saw 
us. And they must have seen us ? She dashed 
her hands over her eyes, and rose to her feet. “You 
know, Anthony, it would never have happened unless 
we had decided to go out of each other’s lives for ever. 
It was an end that broke us down. . . . And they saw 
it. And they thought it was a beginning.” 

“If they saw us, why did they creep away? Why 
didn’t they confront us?” he asked. 

The sensitive leaves in her shrank together. 

“How could they?” 

He made a turn or two about the room. 

“Well,” said he, after a silence, “let us take it for 
granted they did see us—at the worst. All kinds of 
odds and ends in Beatrice’s behaviour and speech come 
into my head, and make it seem probable that theysdid. 
But don’t you see? The gods were on our side. The 
gods gave them the excuse, or the sanction, that they’d 
been looking for. That side of it’s as clear as daylight. 
It’s Panini. The Italian has never developed beyond 
the Court of the Borgias.”’ 

“Do you really think,” asked Perella, “that they 
looked on it as—what did you call it?—their sanction?” 

“It stands to reason, my child. People like them 
don’t run of and live together unless they’re assured 
they’ll giye no pain and misery. Beatrice would tear 
her hearé out sooner than hurt me. So would Silvester 





THE FOUR 363 


rather than hurt you. And as for us, it never entered 
our heads, as honourable man and woman, to do any- 
thing else but sacrifice ourselves so as not to inflict pain 
on them.” 

She sat on by the fire. “I wish I could think so.” 

“You must. There’s no other way to think. Bea- 
trice and I have not been very happy—well, she’s nearly 
twenty years older than I am. There are things we 
don’t talk about, sweetheart. But there they are... . 
And the gap between you and Silvester’s more... . 
If we feel it, in our way, our way of full youth, don’t 
you think they feel it in their way? Of course they do. 
They’ve been, very sweetly and gently, in love with each 
other for years. ‘They discovered, since the whole lot 
of us have been thrown together intimately the last few 
months, that their real happiness lay in a life together. 
They’ve found their chance and taken it. And we’re 
left free.” 

“But they saw us,” said Perella. ‘They put their 
own interpretation—so natural ig 

“They put the interpretation that suited their case 
—also naturally.” 

He looked at her for a few moments and said, with a 
touch of irritation: “I wish I hadn’t shown you the 
silly letter. Only I was so mad with Panini. It made 
me see red... .” 

He laughed and changed to the key of gaiety. 

“We'll kill Panini for ever, darling, and bury him in 
the unconsecrated ground of our memories. Come out 
and lunch in town. Eat, drink and be merry, for to- 
morrow is Christmas.” 

“Aren’t you lunching with Mr. Armstrong at the 
Arts’ Club?” 

“Oh, Lord!” said he, “so I am—I forgot. My Con- 
science, as always, Perella mia.’”’ He looked at his 





364 PERELLA 


watch. “I must fly. To-night, then. I call for you 
and Caroline at seven.” 

She rose, and he took her face between his palms and 
lifted it and looked into her eyes. 

“T wish I could think of a flower to call you. But 
there’s none this side of Heaven.” 

The flat door, whither she had accompanied him, 
closed. She was left alone. She went, like a sleep- 
walker, back into the prim, chintz-hung drawing-room, 
and sat on the couch and stared in front of her at fan- 
tastic and appalling visions. 

Presently she put on hat and coat and went out. She 
crossed the bridge. The morning was fine, and the 
frosty air whipped colour into her cheeks. At the 
Chelsea end, she hailed an empty taxi-cab. 


CHAPTER XXIII 


Sr.vestrer, on his return from Brighton, took up his 
quarters again at the Vanloo Hotel. Beatrice had gone 
straight to Esher to spend Christmas with Peggy, 
Duchesse de Montfaucon, recently widowed, and living 
solitary in her great house. Both women had urged 
him to join them, if only, they said, to strike a mascu- 
line note at their tame meals. 'The Duchesse had writ- 
ten him the most charming and tactful of letters. 

Beatrice, who had confidentially revealed to her 
friend the blacker side of their elopement, had coun- 
selled prudence. 

“For God’s sake, my dear, don’t let him think you 
dream of anything wrong between us. Assume that 
he has come to England on business, and may be 
stranded in London. If he has nothing better to do 
will he take pity on two lone women? His old friend 
Beatrice is staying here. . . . You would love to renew 
your acquaintance with him. . . . That sort of thing. 
Otherwise he’ll shrink from the publicity of one—you. 
I know him. How we’re going to manage afterwards, 
Heaven only knows.” 

And she herself had written a despairing letter. 
Apart from Dickensian sentiment, Christmas was a time 
when the consensus of society had determined that a 
lonely creature, usually contented in his loneliness, 
should feel himself thereby accursed, being shut out 
from the glad communion of his kind. She herself 
would be incarnate wretchedness at the thought of him 
mouldering alone in that tomb of a hotel with a man- 
agement’s artificial tokens of holly and mistletoe over 


his head. And, after all, why should he not give pleas- 
365 


366 PERELLA 


ure to his none too joyous Beatrice, and to a woman 
who mourned a husband whom, for all his scapegraced- 
ness, she had astonishingly loved? 

In the face of this, what could the nervous man do 
but yield? He packed up his suit-case and went to 
Esher, where two kind women ministered to his comfort. 

It was only on meeting him, after the few days’ in- 
terval since their Brighton trip, that Beatrice realized 
in him a certain brokenness of will, a snapping of fibre. 
When he had counselled their drastic act, he had shown 
the streak of iron that must run through any man who 
achieves greatness in this stormily competing world, and 
it was from him that she had derived strength. Now he 
seemed spent with the effort, the iron had grown rusted 
and unavailing, he hung his head as though guilty of 
the basest betrayal, and, at times, began to look like an 
old man. Yet he had the courage, like herself, never 
to hint a regret at what they had done, or to lament a 
happiness that had fled. : 

Her heart melted over him so that it half forgot its 
own ache. She would win him back, if not to happi- 
ness, at least to content of life. It was a woman’s task 
anyhow, worth living to accomplish. 

‘People will forget,” she said comfortingly when they 
touched on the future. ‘Those who don’t will smile on 
what they will call our elderly romance, and love us all 
the more for it. And I shall hold my-head high, a very 
proud woman.” 

“And,” said he, “the very greatest that God ever 
made.” 

Once, when referring to the delicate subject—for 
Peggy de Montfaucon had not only natural feminine 
curiosity, but could assert the privilege of friendship— 
she asked: 

“But the little wife? I saw her with him in London 


THE FOUR 367 


somewhere, two or three years ago. <A pretty thing— 
I didn’t meet her personally. What about her?” 

Beatrice braced herself to answer: ‘There’s a man 
somewhere about—young like herself. lle se content- 
era. 'There’s no great crime on either side. Can you 
imagine a lamb like Silvester tearing out a dove’s 
heart?” 

With which Peggy de Montfaucon had to be content. 
Her other curiosity she could not gratify. She could 
only guess the reasons that sanctioned Beatrice’s aban- 
donment of Anthony. She had never come under the 
spell of the young artist who had made so dismal a fail- 
ure of her portrait, and she had always deplored her 
friend’s infatuation. On the other hand, she loved Sil- 
vester, his sweet outlook on human things, the exquisite 
breeding cropping up like gold in a reef through his 
queer timidities. As a guest in her house, she set her- 
self to spoil him. 

He had arrived in time for dinner on the twenty- 
third. She had devoted herself to his welcome, identi- 
fying herself with the provision of his little creature 
comforts—fire, flowers, books in his room—thus warm- 
ing him against the cold efficiency of servants. In the 
morning, which was fine, she had conducted him round 
the gardens and the conservatories, and had stuck an 
orchid in the button-hole of his old-fashioned jacket, 
and had taken his arm and talked with tactful senti- 
ment about Raoul, her late husband, so that his sym- 
pathy was awakened, and he patted her hand. 

The three lunched agreeably. Under the glow of 
two dear women, the cloud of his depression melted 
away. They talked of France, of Burgundy, where 
was the rude chateau of the Montfaucons, of the peas- 
sant life and customs rooted far back in the centuries, 
when Burgundy warred with France. At dessert the 


368 PERELLA 


hostess commanded a Chateau Yquem of historic vin- 
tage—one bottle of three survivors, which she had 
opened in his honour. Encrusted with the webs of age, 
it lay startling in its wicker cradle, as though proclaim- 
ing its eternal youth. As the old butler, ministrant of 
august ceremonial, filled the glasses, a perfume like that 
of hyacinths filled the air. 

“This,” said Silvester, “is one more proof of the 
bountiful beauty of God.” 

They went into the morning-room for coffee; a bright 
room with an air, its door-windows leading on to a 
wide terrace beyond which stretched winter lawns 
flanked by clipped yews; a room in accord with the 
grace of water-colours around the walls. A great fire 
blazed cheerfully. Peggy de Montfaucon, slim, dark- 
eyed, her bare arms and neck relieving the deadness of 
a black frock, busied herself with the tray; brought him 
his coffee, imperiously commanding him not to rise, and 
hovered over him with tong-held lump of sugar. Life 
was gracious after all. And there, close by, sat a great 
and, to his elderly vision, very beautiful woman, queenly 
browed, whose honest blue eyes conveyed to him their 
message of courage and consolation. - 

“My dear hostess,” said he, holding out his cup for 
the sugar, “I am the most pampered of men.” 

The door opened and the old butler appeared and 
went up to Silvester. 

“T beg your pardon, sir; but a lady has called who 
would very much like to see you.” 

“A lady?” he cried involuntarily. 

“Yes, sir. A lady.” 

No one but an old English butler could give so deli- 
cately subtle an emphasis to a word. 

“She would not give her name.” 


THE FOUR 369 


Silvester stared through his thick lenses. 

“A little lady?” 

“I should say quite a little lady, sir,” said the butler. 

Silvester rose, and meeting Beatrice’s questioning 
gaze, made an agitated and helpless gesture. It was 
some moments before he could speak. The butler 
stood imperturbably deferential. Peggy de Montfau- 
con sat embarrassed. 

“T think I’d better go to her,” said Silvester. 

“No,” said Beatrice suddenly. “Burford, will you 
show the lady in here.” 

The butler retired. 

“At first, at any rate, I’d better be with you.” She 
motioned him to silence. “No, no, my dear. I know 
the child’s not a virago going to make a scene. She 
wouldn’t come here without reason.” 

Peggy de Montfaucon rose. 

“T7Il leave you.” 

Beatrice took her arm. 

“Please stay, and support us. You must know that 
he and I are as innocent as two babies.” 

Before the astounded lady could reply, the door was 
thrown open and Perella stood on the threshold. She 
advanced a pace or two. Beatrice moved forward. 

“This is our hostess, the Duchesse de Montfaucon— 
Mrs. Gayton.” 

Perella bowed. Silvester stood with hands clasped in 
front of him and his knuckles showed white. 

Beatrice said gently: 

“Why have you come here?” 

“I’ve come to get my husband,” said Perella. 

The soft south light fell full on her, a tiny figure lost 
in the dark furs, showing nothing of her but a star- 
tlingly calm yet eager face. 


370 PERELLA 


Silvester passed a hand across his lips. ‘How can 
you, Perella, after all that has happened?” 

“T’m convinced that nothing has happened,” said 
Perella. 

“The proofs are in your lawyer’s hands. I pre- 
sume you know that?” said Beatrice. 

Perella put her hand on a chair back. “May I sit 
down? I’m rather tired.” 

Peggy de Montfaucon sprang forward. “Do for- 
give me. ...” Then, with a swift look, “Where have 
you come from?” 

*“London—in a taxi.” 

“Then you can’t have had anything to eat... . Pil 
give orders. . . .” 

“Oh, please, please don’t,” cried Perella. 

But her hostess had already swept from the room. 

“It was very foolish of you to go without your lunch, 
Perella,” said Silvester. “I can’t imagine why. If 
you wanted to see me—well—an appointment. Be- 
sides, how did you know I was here?” 

“T went to the Vanloo Hotel. They told me you had 
gone into the country. I told them who I was, and 
made up some sort of a story about travelling and miss- 
ing telegrams, and they gave me your address. So I 
took the taxi on.” 

“What I can’t understand is, why you’re here at all,” 
said Beatrice. ‘As I said a moment ago, your lawyers 
have the proofs.” 

“T’ve come to say that I don’t believe in the proofs,” 
said Perella. 

Silvester came up to her with quivering lips, as she 
sat in the straight-backed chair. | 

“But you must. They’re formal. And can’t you 
see it’s for the happiness of everybody?” 

She looked up at his face that had grown so worn and. 


THE FOUR 371 


old since she had last seen it, and, with a half-laugh that 
cracked shrilly, cried: 

“Yes. You look so happy, don’t you, dear?” 

And the next moment she broke down into sobs, with 
hidden face. 

Silvester moved around her helplessly. After a 
while Beatrice approached, and, in her gentle way, 
touched her shoulder. 

“Y’m afraid things have gone too far.” 

Perella flung herself away, and confronted them with 
tear-stained face. 

“You know they haven’t. Not for any one of us. I 
never dreamed of being unfaithful to Silvester. An- 
thony never dreamed of being unfaithful to you. It 
was the foolishness of years ago that came up between 
us gradually—and at last we found it getting too 
strong for us, and we made up our minds never to see 
each other again... and then you saw us—in the 
Flemings’ garden P 

“My God!” cried Silvester, “we thought .. .” 

“Yes. You thought we didn’t know. And we 
didn’t till this morning. A letter from Cornelius. 
Panini had seen us and told you where to find us. He’s 
spreading the story about Florence. . . . I’ve never 
been able to understand why you did this thing—it went 
against my reason. Now I know. That’s why I know 
the proofs are rubbish. 'That’s why I couldn’t rest un- 
til I had come to ask you to forgive me for causing you 
all this misery.” 

She said her say valiantly, as she had determined 
during the racking drive from London. There fol- 
lowed a sequel of distracted talk. Before her clear vi- 
sion the heart-rent elders could not keep up their 
pretence of guilt. They kept on saying in pathetically 
lame reiteration: 





372 PERELLA 


“We did it for the best, dear, so that you and An- 
thony . . . you were young. We felt we had unknow- 
ingly wronged you both... .” 

And Perella. “But I? Didn’t you know that the 
thought of hurting you would kill me?” 

At last Beatrice put the tremendous question. 

“And Anthony?” 

Perella echoed vaguely: “Anthony? I don’t 
know. He had no idea I was coming down. ‘The idea 
—what I had to do—find Silvester—only occurred to 
me after he had gone. He had to go, all in a hurry— 
a luncheon engagement with Mr. Halliday Arm- 
strong.” 

“‘Doesn’t he see things as you see them?” asked Bea- 
trice. 

Perella turned on her. “He must. How can he 
help it?” 

Beatrice smiled very sadly, and shook her head, and 
crossed to the door. 

“Tf he did, he would have let any Royal Academician, 
or any Royal Anything in the world go hang, and he 
would have come here too. Don’t you know Anthony?” 

She went swiftly out, leaving the two nervously alone 
in the large gracious room. The snap of the door 
struck a note of human destiny. ‘They knew that she 
had shut the door upon Anthony for ever. ‘The eyes 
of both had followed her. It was a poignant moment. 
They stood silent, pathetic statues. At last Silvester 
moved towards the fireplace, repeating the foolish 
formula: 

“We did it for the best, Perella; you mustn’t 
blame us.’ 

“You fe seem to understand,” said she, “that it’s 
I who am asking forgiveness.” 


THE FOUR 373 


“My dear child,” said he, “what have I to forgive?” 

Perella looked at him half tragically. Would he 
never understand? She went up to him and laid a 
hand upon his arm. 

“Did you get a trunk from Florence?” she asked. 

“Yes. Yes, I think I did,” he replied absently. “A 
day or two ago:” 

“I packed it.” 

“Vou?” 

“Yes. And didn’t you find a bit of my heart in- 
side?” said Perella. 

A light dawned on his face. 

“That was why—the old glove? .. .” 

“Yes, the glove,” said Perella. ‘“Didn’t you guess?” 


At seven o’clock she awaited Anthony in the little 
drawing-room of the Battersea flat. Caroline, who had 
looked forward to the dinner and theatre jaunt, sat 
disconsolate, yet feeling philosophically justified, in the 
dining-room. Anthony arrived punctually, gay, 
handsome, magnificent in fur-lined coat thrown back 
revealing white waistcoat and tie. His entrance was 
checked by the sight of her morning frock. He made 
the obvious remark, with a touch of light reproach. 

*““Not dressed yet?” 

“I’m not going out to-night, Anthony, You must 
forgive me. All that’s over.” 


“Over?” 
“Yes. Please sit down. I’ve something to say to 
you.” 


He obeyed her, slipping off his coat. 

“T suppose it’s about that rotten letter this morn- 
ing. I can’t for the life of me see why it should worry 
you.” 7 


BT4 PERELLA 


“Don’t you?” With the fingers of her maimed hand 
she nervously twisted her wedding-ring round and 
round. ‘“Hasn’t it occurred to you to-day that two 
very heroic people resolved to sacrifice themselves so 
that we should be happy?” His face was all puzzle- 
ment and incredulity. ‘Well, think,” she went on. 
‘“'They’re both much older than we are. They saw us. 
In their eyes it seemed obvious what we were to each 
other. Then they raked up in their minds all sorts of 
other trivial things—Monte Carlo—Cannes—your 
carrying me to the boat that day. ... How do I 
know? Anyhow, they agreed that they had lost us, and 
so, my dear, they took the only crazy way that noble 
people like them could think of—and invented this fool- 
ish, lunatic, wonderful fake of theirs.” 

Anthony’s puzzlement gave way to a burst of laugh- 
ter. 

“My darling child! Those two—their running 
away—a fake? How did such an insane idea get into 
your head? No, no. They’re human beings with 
every beautiful quality, but they’re not monsters of al- 
truism.” 

“If you like to put it that way, they are. I know,” 
said Perella quietly. 

Her tone brought his mirth to an end. Aware of 
his Perella, he saw that she was dealing with things 
more solid than fantastic. But still, half-incredulous, 
he said: 

“Even so, for the sake of argument. What then?” 

“T put it to you,” said Perella. 

She awaited his answer breathlessly, knowing that on 
it depended a secret and precious solace in the life that 
lay before her. He made a few steps about the little 
room. 

“T can’t conceive myself being in such a phantasma- 


THE FOUR 375 


gorical situation—but if I were—well—I couldn’t ac- 
cept such a sacrifice. It wouldn’t be decent.” 

She gave a little cry of relief. “I am so glad, so 
glad.” 

“Of course,” he said, “there would be another way 
out—a more———” 

She rose, interrupting him. “No, no, my dear, there 
isn’t. I know what you were going to say. There’s 
only one way. I found that out this afternoon. I 
went down to Esher.” 

““Hsher?” he echoed. 

CV as,?? 

‘And saw Beatrice?” 

‘And Silvester.” 

“My God!” said he, sitting down and staring at her 
helplessly. 

“Ym going back to him,” said Perella. ‘He took on 
more than he can carry through. I got the truth out 
of them—it wasn’t very difficult—they’ve been through 
Hell, both of them... .” She turned away, and was 
silent for a moment or two, struggling for self-control. 

“So you see, Anthony, we can’t spend Christmas to- 
gether.” 

Suddenly he sprang to his feet. 

“Do you think I’m going to lose you a second time? 
Not for anything in life, Perella.” 

He came to her passionately, but he only met brave 
and unresponsive eyes. He could take her in his arms 
merely because he had strength, but he would meet un- 
yielding lips. The elf had become woman, a sad 
woman, upheld by a love within her that exceeded love. 
He knew that not all the rant of passion in the world 
would move her. 

““What’s the good?” she said. 

“You’re right.” He lifted dejected shoulders. 


376 PERELLA 


“You’re always right. But we don’t seem to have a 
chance, do we? Of course, I had it once, and 
missed it.” 

They talked awhile. She touched on her visit, on im- 
mediate plans. To-night she would stay with Caro- 
line. To-morrow, Christmas Day, Silvester would 
meet her at Victoria and they would start for Florence 
together. They would break their journey at Paris. 
Question of reservations. 

‘’That means the end of everything,” said Anthony. 

“Or a new beginning.” 

“A bit of a wreck, our Christmas.” 

Yes; but things had so happened. He must explain 
all to Gloria who would understand. And the children 
—well! She sighed. Then they sat together is dull 
anti-climax. 

“What do you think Id better dor” he asked at ae 

‘“That’s for you to decide.” 

He shifted his ground, viewing things through his 
emotional temperament. 

“T see now the splendour of the sacrifice she was mak- 
ing—oh! not giving me up—I don’t seem to be worth 
very much. But her name, her position, everything. 
But, on the other hand, Perella, there’s you and I. 
What’s going to happen in the future to you? If you 
didn’t love me, it wouldn’t much matter. But you do.” 

“T’ve always loved you, dear, and always shall,” said 
Perella. 

“Then what’s going to become of it all—that love?” 

“T shall lay it away in lavender. Perhaps that’s the 
wisest thing to do,” she added wistfully. ‘Then it’s 
always beautiful and sweet and fragrant.” 

‘“Not much life in it,” said he, with some bitterness. 

“It depends on what you call life,” said Perella. 

“Perhaps. ‘The flesh or the spirit.” 


THE FOUR 377 


“Just so.” 

_ “T suppose being a man I feel things differently,” he 
said. “I want you, and I can’t get you, and what the 
hell’s going to happen to me, I don’t know.” 

She looked away. ‘Don’t make it harder for me,” 
she said. 

“God!” said he. “It’s hard on both of us.” 

“What about Beatrice?” she asked. “Isn’t it hard 
on her?” 

“Of course. Yet if it hadn’t been for this mad 
Quixotism of theirs things would have righted them- 
selves.” 

_ “YT wonder,” said Perella. “We should always have 
been wanting each other, longing for the impossible. 
We should never have realized what we had got.” | 

_ “What have I got now?” 

“Beatrice.” 3 

He shook his head. ‘“That’s all over.” 

“Why not go down and see her?” she suggested 
softly. “This evening. It’s only an hour’s run. A 
telephone message to prepare her.” 

“Always my Conscience ... oh! my God.” ‘He 
laughed bitterly. “Yes. Dll do it. But itll be no 
good. Her first letter was final. I might pretend. 
But she’s too proud and fine a woman to put up with 
shams.” 

A heavy silence fell on them. 

Perella stared into the fire, still twisting the wedding- 
ring. She remembered the snap of the drawing-room 
door at Esher. What could she say? Her mind wan- 
dered into the future. Anthony was young, with his 
man’s career before him. Other women, strange, un- 
known women would yield to his fascination. ‘There 
would come one especial woman whom he loved. The 
vague, inevitable shadow passed before her eyes, and 


378 PERELLA 


she winced in pain. But it must come to that. And 
Beatrice, great-hearted, would give him his freedom 
whenever he might ask for it. Her pity went from him 
to Beatrice. He was young. He could grapple with 
life. . . . Beatrice, Silvester, from the point of view of 
youth, lay away remote from Anthony. That was 
where women differed essentially from men. All the — 
fibres of her soul closed round Silvester. Beatrice 
stood before her tragic, heroic, beautiful, facing life 
with courage in acceptance of inexorable verdict. Sil- 
vester and Beatrice loomed before her as the real peo- 
ple. Anthony melted into an abstract force that had 
racked her with delicious and unprofitable thrills. 
There was no longer an Anthony. 

She was aroused with a start by his saying: 

“IT suppose that’s the end of it.” 

He had risen and put on his coat. She made a step 
towards him. 

“It must be. I’m sorry, dear.” 

He shrugged his shoulders, sought his cigarette case. 

“Do you remember that morning in Florence, when 
you wanted to see me to the Pension Toselli and I 
stopped you at the Ponte Vecchio? I had a feeling I 
couldn’t cross the bridge with you again. It seems silly 
and superstitious. But we’ve tried to cross, and it 
hasn’t been allowed. The bridge was barred mid-way.” 

“For the life of me, even now,” he cried with a last 
show of passion, “I can’t see why we shouldn’t break 
down the barrier.” 

“We can’t,” said Perella. “It’s too strong. It’s 
made of human hearts.” 


THE END 








92- £24708 


Se, ENP eR NN eee. he ae 





=r 








ne 


a 
WG 

iS {OUI ‘ es: a 
Cake uN 
sy) 


ey, 
ie ie A wy > 
a ine Ata i; 4y Ms ae i 
RUNS UD A GRIN ante 
D \ i ha y at 
. AR Sata a * ; a NWS: 
Kay as ee } 


Santa 


* Seeenay: 
“fs on nl a . bee on 
nO Oy ey i 0 K Gr ie 
oo) Ad ne Ke BPI Ne ih) 
af 


te ke 3 


ied) as 


‘i 


se 
a 


ren ian - 
a | ss ) 


ioe 
nears 


i He Ol ay AN 
le a 
Na 
ahve 
Noy 


f 


ee eas 
=. 
reer 


ee 


SF 


* vat 
ye Fa AREY Sia 


ne 
Sone ra 
en 


_ 
me, 
“2 


(fraSo~r 
ED 
iw 
4. 

Z 


Ee. Sens 
3 Re 
= 


- 


i iA me ; ek Ma ‘ Wy) af as 
: . | y : oo ot SC ACA ed ONS 
nti : vy a oe BS Beat a 
oy a mn spi 


BNO Un: eva: : 
Ny hs i aN " Nhs v) Z SENN Nighy me" 
He i a i ae 4 ayy hs AGS 
ays 
ie yale Many 
or . Be yin 
UPR Pare aay 


Teiteeey) ory) 
RING AD BOaEAN 
ois Wan a ye q 7 


Pha) 
As A wAty) ee 
hy iY fo ith r yi NSoer tad, EIR op 
Ms View Ween AS 
aoe A 
ae Pia 


ri Ont i ba 
Hh tnees ih 


; 
ay j im 
ey th) chs) Wee yy us 
eR sass AAS Ria PTviea 
é an ee) a 


ony A 
an 


- 

‘ ‘ Sas ap ie 

| SAU beer ha ay aver eats NG AS A Saat 

| SNA ROSS i mf 

STERSAL SR poe ies va Het aR m % A } 

Oy, . é 4 ¥ 7 $5 Ki i 

oF i ae TRANS NG aN ag CRS iss 

ve 5 ae Ab Tosh t. Ge te wy Uy seins 330 ; uh 
- ia me ye mS hae sy oN *) iy Re ‘ 

es s cn i 


i » a 
EN) ON 
ny . an a x % sa efi aM ye Sy f } 
ce ty ae ARS oe 


iy 


rocant 
ee 
ee 


: pet NT 
Ve hrecke i Duedat t 
cian 


Tea 
ee 
soars 


> 


fos 


<3 


~~ sag? —- 2 
sae Fre 


S 


— 
xt 


) : aah i ty ie 
fi ; ASRS 





